Complex coordination in diachrony: Two Sogeram case studies

This paper presents two innovations in the clause chaining system of the Sogeram languages of Papua New Guinea. In the first, chain-final morphology was reanalyzed as chain-medial morphology with different-subject switch reference meaning. In the second, common collocations of two verbs in a clause chain were reanalyzed as constituting a single compound verb stem. Previously, scholars held that increased structural integration of clauses necessarily results in structural asymmetry (that is, subordination), but the Sogeram data show that this need not always be the case. The cross-linguistic impulse towards increased integration is realized in both innovations, but the impulse towards asymmetry is only realized in the first. This paper thus argues that with coordinate source constructions such as these clause chains, one clause may become subordinate to the other, but the clauses may also retain their coordinate relationship as they become more integrated.