Complementizers and negative polarity in German hypothetical comparatives

Abstract

Abstract The article examines the synchronic and diachronic relation between German hypothetical comparatives and ordinary comparatives. While the presence of an overt equative complementizer is not universally obligatory, it is so in hypothetical comparatives, whereas a conditional complementizer may be absent. This is because the equative complementizer in hypothetical comparatives functions as the licenser of the conditional clause in monoclausal hypothetical comparatives, and in this sense, it is a polarity marker. This difference regarding function accounts for the fact that German allows als in hypothetical comparatives but not in equatives: while the combinations als ob and als wenn historically derive from biclausal constructions, the reanalysis into monoclausal constructions allowed the fossilization of a complementizer without reference to changes affecting ordinary equatives.

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