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5.9 Supplementive predication
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Supplementives describe a temporary state that receives a simultaneous or conditional interpretation with respect to what is described in the main clause. Supplementive constructions are also referred to as constructions of secondary predication. Supplementives can be classified depending on whether their structure is bare or full-fledged. The absolute with-construction instantiates a full-fledged supplementive with a lexicalised subject and a predicate. A bare supplementive just consists of a predicate, which is controlled by an argument of the clause in which the predicate is found. Supplementives are optionally. They can be analysed as a special type of adverbials.

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A bare supplementive consists of a predicate predicated of a Noun Phrase (NP) functioning as subject or direct object. Supplementives can be of any syntactic category, but here we will limit ourselves to verbs. An example of a sentence with a supplementive is given below, in which the supplementive constituent has been put in bold:

1
Hie lusterde laachjend dän uurfierdelke Begjocht dän Fridolin fon dän Uurfaal roate.
he heard laughing the over.festive news which Fridolin of the raid gave
He listened laughing to the very welcome news which Fridolin gave of the raid.
2
Hie flooch kroakjend in Egerlands Kristboom.
he flew creaking in Egerland’s christmas.tree
He flew creaking in Egerland’s Christmas tree.

A verbal supplementive usually takes the form of a present participle or a past participle. The participle is rarely accompanied by any arguments of its own. Usually, if accompanied by anything, it is accompanied by a modifier of degree. Verbal supplementives are characteristic of written language, especially of literature.

Bare supplementives can in West Frisian also be formed by combining a present participle with the suffix -wei ‘away’, but we didn’t find any examples of this process in Saterland Frisian, neither with wai ‘to’ nor with wäch ‘away’.

A full supplementive is instantiated by the absolute with-construction. This construction contain from left to right a complementiser (the preposition with), the argument of the predication and a verb, such as a to-infinitive or a PP infinitive. However, it is not clear to us whether this construction is found in Saterland Frisian.

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