Non-relational Embedding Verbs: Quotes and Reports

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URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10498/24326
DOI: 10.5209/cjes.65989
ISSN: 2386-3935
ISSN: 2386-6624 (internet)
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2020Department
Filología Francesa e InglesaSource
Complutense Journal of English Studies 28, 175-187Abstract
Some verbs cannot have their clausal complements replaced by referential expressions
salva congruitate
and/or
veritate
.
This makes it difficult to analyse them as denoting relations of the type expressed by run-of-the-mill transitive verbs. The main goal
in this work is to find an explanation for why some English embedding verbs are relational while others fail to be so. The question is,
why can the latter, but not the former verbs have their embedded clauses replaced by direct speech complements? A comparison in
the relevant contexts of the related categories of direct and indirect quotation reveals an important degree of coincidence that calls for
(a) an overlapping semantic treatment, and (b) an interpretation of their often invoked differences as due to the contrasting semantic
requirements of the class of verbs that fails to express a relation, non-relational ones. For us, the key distinguishing factor is utterance
denotation, the differences between the two main classes of verbs identified in the work deriving from reliance on either the form or the
content of the utterances involved. In order to account for these facts, we propose a substantial revision of the Davidsonian approach
to clausal complementation