Cristofaro (2003) has conveyed a broad typological study of subordination, which considered dependent clauses in a sample of 80 languages representing diverse genealogical units and geographical areas. One of the goals of her study was to define implicational patterns in the cross-linguistic coding of complement, adverbial and relative subordination relations as manifested in the sentences containing dependent clauses of the respective types. In order to do that, Cristofaro identifies the inventory of morphosyntactic
phenomena relevant for the encoding of subordination and investigates their various logically possible combinations.
The two major parameters that Cristofaro (2003) takes into account are (1) the form of the verb (dependent clause predicate), and (2) the coding of participants. The complex parameter concerning the form of the verb includes three smaller domains, namely, (a) the expression of the tense, aspect and mood distinctions, (b) person agreement, and (c) case marking and adpositions. For the expression of TAM distinctions and person agreement the variation as analyzed by Cristofaro is threefold: the respective values can be expressed in the same way as in independent clauses, they can be expressed in a different way, or not expressed at all. The case marking, on the other hand, can simply be either available or unavailable. As regards the coding of participants, two deviations are most widely attested: (a) verb arguments may not be expressed in dependent clauses, and (b) verb arguments are expressed as possessors instead of receiving their regular marking. The implicational correlations discovered by Cristofaro in the languages of her sample are listed in (117):
Correlations between deranking phenomena in Cristofaro (2003: 277–284) 1a. A distinctions not expressed ĺ T distinctions not expressed
1b. Person agreement not expressed ĺ T/A/M not expressed ש T/A/M special forms Person agreement special forms ĺT/A/M not expressed ש T/A/M special forms 1c. Case marking/adpositions ĺT/A/M not expressed ש T/A/M special forms
Case marking/adpositions ĺPerson agreement not expressed 2a. Arguments not expressed ĺT/A/M not expressed
Arguments not expressed ĺPerson agreement not expressed 2b. Arguments expressed as possessors ĺ
T/A/M not expressed ש T/A/M special forms
Arguments expressed as possessors ĺPerson agreement not expressed ש Person agreement special forms Arguments expressed as possessors ĺCase marking/adpositions
Cristofaro (2003: 277–278) suggests accounting for the correlation (1a) in terms of the principle of relevance, as discussed by Bybee (1985). According to Bybee, the universally preferred order of bound morphemes expressing verbal categories reflects the degree of relevance of each category for the interpretation of the verbal stem. Aspect is shown to occur cross-linguistically closer to the stem, because it affects the semantics of the verb, while tense and mood, expressed further away from the stem do not affect the internal constituency of the situation. As a more relevant category, aspect, therefore, is more frequently overtly encoded on dependent clause predicates, and is not expressed only if the less relevant distinctions are not expressed either.
Concerning the more general correlations, Cristofaro proposes two major functional principles as possible explanations. The first principle is related to the particularities in the conceptualization of depenedent states of affairs, which are claimed to be closer to nouns rather than verbs in their cognitive functions, cf. Langacker (1987a, 1987b). Verbs prototypically encode processes (sequentially scanned entities), whereas nouns
prototypically encode things (summarily scanned entities). Whenever a verb is not being used in its prototypical function, it fails to display the full range of categorial distinctions (such as TAM or person agreement distinctions) that are found in the prototypical function, and it may display some of the properties that are characteristic of nouns in their prototypical function, such as case marking, coding of arguments as possessors, or possessive person agreement (Cristofaro 2007: 100). As I will show later in Chapter 5, both the loss of verbal properties and the acquisition of nominal properties are indeed typical for participial relative clauses considered in my study. It should be noted though, that it is not totally clear from Cristofaro’s explanation how exactly the conceptualization of a state of affairs as a thing pertains to dependent clauses used for adnominal modification, that is, in a prototypical function of an adjective rather than a noun.
The correlations between the impossibility for the verb to take overtly expressed arguments and other properties such as absence of tense, aspect, mood, and person agreement distinctions are, according to Cristofaro (2003: 286–288), best accounted for in terms of another functional principle, namely, a principle of syntagmatic economy. This principle in connection to dependent clauses is based on the fact that the subordination relation types involving obligatory sharing of participants between the main and the dependent clause (and, therefore, predetermination of the participants of the dependent clause) are a subset of those involving predetermination of the time reference, aspect, and mood value of the dependent state of affairs. In other words, there are no subordination relations in which TAM values are predetermined, whereas participants are not. Cristofaro argues, however, that relative relations provide a counterexample to this analysis, since in this case a lack of TAM distinctions and a lack of overtly expressed arguments are motivated in terms of distinct principles. The lack of TAM distinctions is motivated in terms of the cognitive status of the dependent state of affairs (see above), while the lack of overtly expressed arguments is in most cases simply a means of indicating the role of the relativized item, see Section 4.3.5.
The provided analysis of motivations for the lack of TAM distinctions and the lack of overtly expressed arguments in relative clauses is a good illustration of why Cristofaro’s (2003) work is especially relevant for the current study. Importantly, apart from establishing cross-constructional implicational patterns in subordination encoding, Cristofaro also examines separately different types of subordination relations, including relative relations, cf. Cristofaro (2003: Chapter 7). The book, therefore, provides an overview of the deranking phenomena specific for relative clauses, as well as their distribution across different relative constructions, and proposes certain functional- typological explanations of the observed tendencies. The most important of Cristofaro’s findings and observations on these matters will be further discussed when appropriate.