Copy Raising in English, German, and Dutch: Synchrony and Diachrony

Abstract

This study discusses copy raising in English, German, and Dutch from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Synchronically, copy raising has the same purpose in all three languages: to mark direct evidence. However, the languages differ in whether they allow their ‘seem’-verbs to appear in copy-raised constructions: English seem can copy raise, German scheinen cannot, whereas the status of Dutch lijken is undecided. This difference is explained by the diachronic development of these verbs: English seem has developed the furthest along the grammaticalization cline of ‘seem’-verbs, German scheinen is the most conservative in its development, and Dutch lijken has developed quite late, but is quickly catching up to English seem. Even though it is too early to tell, this distribution hints at a Van Haeringen pattern.*

Taking it up a level: Copy-raising and cascaded tiers of morphosyntactic change

“…At first glance, my findings attest to a change in the opposite direction: infinitival to finite subordination after seem . However, there is the possibility that a like -clause is not a CP but a PP as suggested by Heycock (1994, adapting Maling [1983], which proposes an adjectival analysis) (see also Asudeh, 2002, 2012; Asudeh & Toivonen, 2012:324; Poortvliet, 2016:388; Potsdam & Runner, 2001:465–466). Under this analysis, a shift from infinitival subordination after seem to permitted copy-raising mostly with like is a shift from an IP to a PP, which is consistent with the notion of the clausal boundary continuing to break down to smaller components.…”

“…It seems to have evolved via grammaticalization from the conjunction like that introduces adjunctive clauses of manner across a range of verbs, for example, He sat down (as if/as though/like) he's never seen a chair before (Bender & Flickinger, 1999; López-Couso & Méndez-Naya, 2012a). While this like does have the useful and flexible ability to support (but not demand) copy-raising, this is hardly unique; as if and as though permit it as well and are much older (López-Couso & Méndez-Naya, 2012a; Poortvliet, 2016:390–391). How can the complementizer like plausibly be said to have set off a change toward greater proportions of finite subordination when as if and as though never did so?…”

“…English is one of several Germanic languages with verbs that denote apparentness and convey epistemic/evidential qualities. Among other examples are the German scheinen (De Haan, 2007; Diewald & Smirnova, 2010; Poortvliet, 2016; Whitt, 2015), the Dutch lijken (Aijmer, 2009; Poortvliet, 2016; Sanders & Spooren, 1996; Van Egmond, 2004) and/or schijnen (Aijmer, 2009; De Haan, 2007; Sanders & Spooren, 1996), and the Swedish verka (Aijmer, 2009:73; Asudeh & Toivonen, 2007, 2012).…”

“…The approach suggested by Heycock (1994; building on Maling, 1983) that has since received acceptance from multiple authors (Asudeh, 2002:6–8, 2012; Poortvliet, 2016:338; Potsdam & Runner, 2001:465–466; see also Asudeh & Toivonen, 2012:324; Fujii, 2007:301–302) is that while that and Ø are true complementizers, as if, as though, and like are better categorized as prepositions. This would make copy-raising—whatever it is—permissible with a prepositional phrase (PP) but not with a complement phrase (CP) 7 .…”

Introduction – German and Dutch in contrast: synchronic, diachronic and psycholinguistic perspectives

“…From the perspective of modern historical linguistics, compensatory developments involved in 'analytic crumbling' invite an explanation in terms of grammaticalisation, a process which in many cases led to the replacement of cognate synthetic structures with language-specific analytic ones in West Germanic. Examples are the rise of auxiliaries fulfilling functions associated with verbal morphology (e.g., Landsbergen 2006;Poortvliet 2016) and of prepositions replacing case endings (e.g., van der Wouden 2006).…”