An indirect declarative clause is a substantive clause which bears a paradigmatic relation to an independent (direct) declarative clause. The concept is sometimes restricted to clauses governed by declarative speech act verbs. However, verbs of cognition, perception, emotion and volition often take the same type of complement.

Propositional argument of a verb of communication

A verb of communication (verbum dicendi) takes at least two arguments, an animate being as actor and a proposition as effected undergoer. There may be a third argument, an addressee. The verb meanings relevant here include ‘say, tell, report, claim’ etc., as in .

One relevant subdivision of this section is according to the temporal relation between the superordinate and the subordinate proposition. Main predicates like ‘report’ may force an anterior temporal relation for the subordinate proposition, while predicates such as ‘announce’ may force a posterior temporal relation for their content.

The interpropositional relation between a predicate of communication and a proposition functioning as its argument is the enunciative relation of speech reproduction, converted into a relation provided for in the language system. The perspective in that section is on reported discourse in general, while here it is on propositional objects. As explained there, not all reported speech comes under the topic of ‘propositional argument of a verb of communication’.

Propositional argument of a verb of cognition

A verb of cognition (verbum cogitandi/iudicandi) takes two arguments, an animate – typically human – being as actor and a proposition as undergoer which represents a third-order entity. The semantic roles may be conceived as experiencer and theme, respectively.² The verb meanings relevant here include ‘know, believe, think, decide’ etc., as in . Meanings such as ‘hope, desire, intend’ are sometimes included, too, but are here treated in §6. An undelimited subset of these predicates, including ‘believe’, is known in philosophy as (predicates of) propositional attitudes.

In the particular case of main verbs of propositional attitude, the interplay of junction with negation is to be examined. The following equivalence holds:

believe (A, ¬ p) ↔ ¬ believe (A, p)

Consequently, for certain main clause verbs like think, believe, consider, negation of the dependent clause is equivalent to negation of the main clause, as in .

The phenomenon has been called (in a transformational perspective) “negative ascension”, viz. from version #a to version #b.

Propositional argument of a perception verb

A verb of perception (verbum sentiendi) represents the core of an experiential situation. It takes two arguments, an animate being as actor and an entity of any ontological order¹ as undergoer. The specific role of the actor is experiencer, the specific role of the undergoer is stimulus (of the experience). The verb meanings relevant here include ‘see, hear, feel’ etc., as in .

An important distinction here concerns the nature of the propositional argument:

• It may represent a state of affairs, thus a second-order entity, which takes place at the same time as the perception act. In this case we deal with direct perception (“de re”). Examples are a and a. It is essentially the same as the immediate perception of a physical object (a first-order entity in that ontology), like ‘I saw Mary’.
• It may represent a thought (a third-order entity), a cognitive representation which is inferred on the basis of some (immediate) perception. In this case we deal with indirect perception (“de dicto”). Examples are b and b.

In English, there is a rather regular association between the two syntactic strategies illustrated (a.c.i. in the #a versions vs. finite clause in the #b versions) and the two kinds of perception. There is, thus, in this language an iconic relationship between the directness of perception and the fusion of the two clauses.

Two constraints are typical of situations of direct perception:

1. The perceiving and the perceived situation are simultaneous. See more on time constraints.
2. The actors of the two situations are normally distinct; exceptions are possible

Declarative depending on other predicates

As indicated above, it is possible that some of the subclasses set up in Givón 1980 deserve a status as typologically relevant predicate classes.

¹ in terms of Lyons's (1977, ch. 11.3) ontology of naïve realism

² The term ‘theme’ has recently been used to designate a moved object. Here, it designates the role of what a cognitive or communicative act is about.

References

Lehmann, Christian et al. 2004, Person prominence and relation prominence. On the typology of syntactic relations with particular reference to Yucatec Maya. Erfurt: Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität (ASSidUE, 12).