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Complementation in Ibero-Romance

  Tags: History | Syntax
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labujía
Diglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3953 days ago

11 posts - 13 votes
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 1 of 4
27 November 2014 at 1:44pm | IP Logged 
Hello everyone, I've been given an essay title regarding the evolution of something
called "complementation" from Latin to the modern Ibero-Romance languages (i.e. what we
consider today to be Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Galician). Does anyone at all have
any clue about what this word refers to, as a search on the Internet and a few book
indices did not help at all, and I can't start my reading in preparation for the essay
unless I know what I'm supposed to be focusing on.

Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to help. :)
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
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Denmark
berejst.dk
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Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
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 Message 2 of 4
27 November 2014 at 4:11pm | IP Logged 
I also checked the internet, and as you might expect there are articles about both complements and complementation in the English Wikipedia plus a number of other sources. However it seems that there is some leeway in the way the nouns "complement" and "complementation" are used.

"Complement" seems to be used about the thing which in other traditions is called a 'predicative', i.e. "agricola sum" (I'm a farmer). This is a subject predicative/complement, but you can also have object ("lo llaman agricultor") and free predicative/complements. So by inference - and based on the pages on the internet that define "complementation" - it seems that this notion include all constructions where there is a complement/predicative of some kind involved. Its role can be taken by nouns, adjectives, some adverbials (place, time, mode) or prepositional phrases. And some sources also mention verbal complements of different kinds.

And I'm glad I don't have to write an essay about the developments in all these constructions from Latin to the present day... it would be a monumental task even for a professional linguist.    


Edited by Iversen on 27 November 2014 at 4:17pm

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akkadboy
Triglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5167 days ago

264 posts - 497 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish
Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh

 
 Message 3 of 4
27 November 2014 at 5:46pm | IP Logged 
You may want to check Dixon R. M. W. & Aikhenvald A. Y. (eds.), Complementation, A cross-linguistic Typology, Oxford University Press, 2006.

Edited by akkadboy on 27 November 2014 at 5:47pm

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labujía
Diglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3953 days ago

11 posts - 13 votes
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 4 of 4
28 December 2014 at 9:00pm | IP Logged 
Thanks for the replies. In fact, it turns out that complementation does not refer to
predicates (in this case), but rather to phrases such as:

lo hago para ganar dinero. (Spanish)
Quiero que me lo corrijas. (Spanish)
Para fazermos a tarefa, tens que dar-nos mais informação. (Portuguese)

and the differences between them (e.g. use of infinitive, subjunctive or indicative in
the complement clause), and how they developed from various constructions in Latin
(for example, by using the particle UT which corresponds to 'so that' or 'in order
to'). With a little prod in the right direction from our supervisor, the main focus
ended up being the development of the personal infinitive in the Ibero-Romance
languages; of course, Portuguese has inflections which make the form more salient and
allow for two different subjects in different clauses such as in the example that I
gave, whereas Spanish (and Catalan, seemingly) infinitives don't have these
inflections. However, there are still cases where there is an implicit subject for the
infinitive in Spanish, which does not correspond to the following/preceding subject (I
don't have the examples at hand).


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