Syntactic paradigms, markedness and similative markers in comparative and relative clauses

This programmatic paper investigates a peculiar part of the complementiser system in Germanic and beyond, concentrating on the status of similative markers. In Germanic languages, it is com-mon for complementisers like so (swa) and its reinforced version as (all + so ‘just like’) to introduce not only similative clauses, but also relative clauses, degree equatives, and compara-tives. I show that the relation between these clause types can be best modelled by stipulating the existence of syntactic paradigms, the members of which are ordered according to markedness. Gaps in the paradigm appear to occur in the more marked functions. The members of this para-digm are subject to diachronic changes in the complementiser along two major lines: (i) the morphological distinction among the individual members (comparable to phonological distinc-tions in inflectional paradigms) and (ii) analogical changes affecting the morphological proper-ties of the complementiser (comparable to analogical changes in pronominal systems).