Chapter 1

The syntactic realisation of complex events and complex predicates in situations of Irish

This chapter is concerned with the nature of complex events and complex predicates in Irish. We characterise the framing of complex events within a situation. A situation is considered to be a structured entity with certain attributes that serves as a unifying device to link semantics to events through to syntax. Through the perspective of a situation, we view the set of relationships between multi-verb constructions, single and multiple clauses, and a variety of complex events. In a sentence or clause with multiple verbs, the multiple verbs are argued to represent individual discrete events characterised in some relation of significance and conceptualised as forming a cognitive unit with significant syntactic consequences for argument realisation and argument sharing. Using Irish data, within a situation we examine and characterise multiple events where the events are in a transition from e1 into e2, in sequence where e1 occurs before e2, and simultaneous events occurring together where e1 and e2 unfold at the same time. We also characterise complex predication where the multi-verb single clause realises a single event in syntax but additionally denotes the phase of the event. We find that a multi-verb single clause can encode causation or certain adverbial-like functions such as modulating manner, means, path or trajectory of the event.