Complements of knowledge and belief: a framing analysis

Annual meeting and lecture with Professor William B. McGregor, Aarhus University.

The grammar of factive complements

Lecture by William B. McGregor (LICS, Aarhus University).

Abstract

In previous publications (including McGregor 1994, 1997, 2008, 2019, 2021) I have argued that many constructions traditionally classified as complement clause constructions – including e.g. they said that I should shave, they hoped that I would shave, he told them the turtle was dead, he thought the turtle had died – do not involve the complement clause in an argument role, here object, in the matrix clause. Instead, I have suggested, that the relation between the clauses is one of either scope or framing. My main focus of interest has been on reported speech and thought constructions, which I have argued, typically involve framing: the matrix clause frames the complement clause as a depiction (an enactment or demonstration) of an utterance or thought. (In certain circumstances, however, they instead involve the relation of scope, with the matrix clause modally modifying the complement.)

I have until recently largely ignored factive complements. These are the topic of this paper. I argue that the framing analysis can be extended to these types of complement construction. Drawing on ongoing research, I say that in various indigenous Australian languages the matrix clause frames the complement clause as an encoding of a fact. In English, however, some factive complements show the complement clause framed by a generic “shell” noun (such as fact), the NP serving in an argument role in the matrix clause. This raises the possibility that factive complements lacking a shell noun may involve defenestration (see also McGregor 2019). The main point of the paper is to present evidence for these analyses and to examine their implications.

My approach is a structural-functional one in Chris Butler’s terms (2003), one that instates grammatical relations in a central place in the theoretical architecture. It takes a Hallidayan line on the naturalness of grammar (Halliday 1985: xiii), in particular that the signifier-signified relation in grammatical relations is a motivated one. It is no accident then that the key grammatical relation in factive complements is framing, expressing an interpersonal meaning.

References

Butler, Christopher S. 2003. Structure and function – a guide to three major structural-functional theories. (2 volumes.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Halliday, Michael A.K. 1985. An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.

McGregor, William B. 1994. The grammar of reported speech and thought in Gooniyandi. Australian Journal of Linguistics 14(1). 63–92.

McGregor, William B. 1997. Semiotic grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

McGregor, William B. 2008. Complementation as interpersonal grammar. Word 59(1). 25–53.

McGregor, William B. 2019. Reported speech as a dedicated grammatical domain – and why defenestration should not be thrown out the window. Linguistic Typology 23(1). 207–219.

McGregor, William B. 2021. Thought complements in Australian languages. Language Sciences 86. 1–18.