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In:Insubordination
Edited by Nicholas Evans and Honoré Watanabe
[Typological Studies in Language 115] 2016
► pp. 65–88

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Chapter 3. Running in the family

Patterns of complement insubordination in Germanic

 | University of Leuven
 | University of Leuven
Published online: 18 November 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.115.03ver
This chapter provides a survey of insubordination patterns (as defined by Evans 2007) in five Germanic languages, Dutch, German, English, Swedish and Danish. The analysis focuses on a type of insubordination that is productive in many Germanic languages, viz. insubordinate complement clauses, introduced by dat (Dutch), dass (German), that (English), att (Swedish) and at (Danish). From a descriptive perspective, we try to identify the full constructional range of complement insubordination in each language, and we compare this range across the five languages. From a theoretical perspective, we use these data to assess the constructional status of insubordinate clauses, their development, and the boundaries of the concept, particularly with respect to ‘discourse-structuring’ or ‘elaborative’ uses. We round off by providing an overall functional characterization of insubordination that draws on functional work on subordination.
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