18 Pragmatic Markers: Synchronic and Diachronic
complement preposing , in large part because of the lack of synonymy between
a sentence such as I feel that Max is a Martian and Max is a Martian, I feel.
Boye and Harder ( 2007 ) propose a development pathway which they sug-
gest is compatible with Thompson and Mulac ’s, namely, that “adverbial CTPs”
(complement- taking predicates , forms such as I think or I guess ; see Thompson
2002 ) have their origin in main clauses occurring with a complement clause.
Incorporating both structure and usage, they suggest a three- step process
(2007: 592):
[I think] [I love her]
A: [main lexical CTP clause, primary status] [complement clause]
↓ usage reanalysis
B: [main lexical CTP clause, secondary status] [complement clause]
↓ structure reanalysis, grammaticalization of CTP
C: [grammatical CTP clause, secondary status] [main clause]In step A, “I think” is structurally lexical (it is a complement- taking verb) and
it has “primary discourse status” (it is the main point of the utterance and is
inherently addressable – one could ask really? ). In step B, “I think” is still a
complement- taking verb in initial position, but it is used with secondary status
at the discourse- pragmatic level (it is not the main point of the utterance but
rather has a “modifying status”). “I think” has been reanalyzed at the level of
usage but not of structure. The form at this stage is “descriptively ambigu-
ous” (586).^19 In step C, “I think” is structurally reanalyzed as “grammatical”
(inherently non- addressable) and secondary to the point of the utterance (non-
addressable, with “adverbial distribution”). Boye and Harder ( 2007 : 592) note
that Thompson and Mulac ( 1991 ) tie grammaticalization to the loss of that but
have nothing further to say on this requirement.^20
Though not envisaged by Thompson and Mulac ( 1991 ), other types of com-
ment clauses could be brought under the umbrella of the matrix clause hypoth-
esis. Parenthetical second- person forms (e.g., you say/ see/ know ), impersonal
constructions (e.g., it seems/ appears/ is said/ is rumored, that/ it is to wit ), and
third- person forms (e.g., one hears , there’s no doubt , God knows ) might also
derive from main clauses with subordinated that- clauses, as suggested by the
following synchronic series :
19 According to Boye and Harder ( 2007 : 587), step B is necessary in order to motivate grammat-
icalization and rule out “instant grammaticalization,” the use of a form in discourse leading to
its immediate grammaticalization. See Dehé ( 2010 : 67), who argues against the existence of
this hybrid category; morphology may be ambiguous, but prosody distinguishes the different
types (see below).
20 Overall, Boye and Harder ( 2007 : 593) fi nd their scenario more compatible with the devel-
opment proposed in Brinton ( 1996 : 251– 253). Cf. section 5.6.2, which presents a somewhat
revised version of this development.