Complementizer
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
(especially generative grammar
), a complementizer (or complementiser) is a syntactic category (part of speech
) roughly equivalent to the term subordinating conjunction
in traditional grammar. For example, the word that is generally called a complementizer in English sentences like Mary believes that it is raining. The term "complementizer" was apparently first used by Rosenbaum (1967).
The standard abbreviation for complementizer is C. The complementizer is widely held to be the syntactic head
of a full clause
, which is therefore often represented by the abbreviation CP (for complementizer phrase). Evidence that the complementizer functions as the head of its clause includes the fact that it is commonly the last element in a clause in languages like Korean
or Japanese
, in which other heads follow their complement
s, and always first in "head-initial" languages such as English.
It is common for the complementizers of a language to develop historically from other syntactic categories (a process known as grammaticalization). Across the languages of the world, it is especially common for determiners to be used as complementizers (e.g., English that). Another frequent source of complementizers is the class of interrogative word
s. It is especially common for a form that otherwise means what to be borrowed as a complementizer, but other interrogative words are often used as well; e.g., colloquial English I read in the paper how it's going to be cold today, with unstressed how roughly equivalent to that). English for in sentences like I would prefer for there to be a table in the corner shows a preposition that has arguably developed into a complementizer. (The sequence for there in this sentence is not a prepositional phrase under this analysis.) In many languages of West Africa and South Asia, the form of the complementizer can be related to the verb say. In these languages, the complementizer is also called the quotative. The quotative performs many extended functions in these languages.
Because that can be inserted between the verb and the embedded clause, the original sentence without a visible complementizer would be reanalyzed as
This suggests another interpretation of the earlier "how" sentence:
where "how" serves as a specifier to the empty complementizer. This allows for a consistent analysis of another troublesome alternation:
where "OP" represents an invisible interrogative known as an operator
.
In a more general sense, the proposed empty complementizer parallels the suggestion of near-universal empty determiners.
Cantonese
and Mandarin Chinese do not have complementizers at all.
complementizer she- ‘that’, which derives from the Hebrew relativizer
she- ‘that’. There is no consensus about the origin of the latter. It might be a shortened form of the Ancient Hebrew
relativizer
‘asher ‘that’, which is related to Akkadian
‘ashru ‘place’ (cf. Semitic *‘athar). [...] Alternatively, Ancient Hebrew
‘asher derived from she-, or it was a convergence of Proto-Semitic dhu (cf. Aramaic dī) and ‘asher. The Hebrew
relativizer
‘ashér is the origin of the Modern Hebrew relativizer
ashér ‘that’, which is much less common than the Modern Hebrew relativizer she- ‘that’. Whereas Modern Hebrew she- functions both as complementizer and relativizer
, ashér can only function as a relativizer
."
Instead of using the she- complementizer, an Israeli formal writer could use the rare complementizer ki ‘that’, which derives from the Ancient Hebrew
complementizer kī ‘that’, from kī ‘because’. [...] As opposed to she- [...] ki should be categorized as a prescriptive complementizer merely. That said, some French
-speaking immigrants to Israel
use the complemetizer ki less rarely than other Israelis because of the incidental phonetic similarity to the French
complementizer que ‘that’" - cf. phono-semantic matching
.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
(especially generative grammar
Generative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
), a complementizer (or complementiser) is a syntactic category (part of speech
Lexical category
In grammar, a part of speech is a linguistic category of words , which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others...
) roughly equivalent to the term subordinating conjunction
Grammatical conjunction
In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
in traditional grammar. For example, the word that is generally called a complementizer in English sentences like Mary believes that it is raining. The term "complementizer" was apparently first used by Rosenbaum (1967).
The standard abbreviation for complementizer is C. The complementizer is widely held to be the syntactic head
Head (linguistics)
In linguistics, the head is the word that determines the syntactic type of the phrase of which it is a member, or analogously the stem that determines the semantic category of a compound of which it is a component. The other elements modify the head....
of a full clause
Clause
In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...
, which is therefore often represented by the abbreviation CP (for complementizer phrase). Evidence that the complementizer functions as the head of its clause includes the fact that it is commonly the last element in a clause in languages like Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
or Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, in which other heads follow their complement
Complement (linguistics)
In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
s, and always first in "head-initial" languages such as English.
It is common for the complementizers of a language to develop historically from other syntactic categories (a process known as grammaticalization). Across the languages of the world, it is especially common for determiners to be used as complementizers (e.g., English that). Another frequent source of complementizers is the class of interrogative word
Interrogative word
In linguistics, an interrogative word is a function word used for the item interrupted in an information statement. Interrogative words are sometimes called wh-words because most of English interrogative words start with wh-...
s. It is especially common for a form that otherwise means what to be borrowed as a complementizer, but other interrogative words are often used as well; e.g., colloquial English I read in the paper how it's going to be cold today, with unstressed how roughly equivalent to that). English for in sentences like I would prefer for there to be a table in the corner shows a preposition that has arguably developed into a complementizer. (The sequence for there in this sentence is not a prepositional phrase under this analysis.) In many languages of West Africa and South Asia, the form of the complementizer can be related to the verb say. In these languages, the complementizer is also called the quotative. The quotative performs many extended functions in these languages.
Empty complementizers
Some analyses allow for the possibility of invisible or "empty" complementizers. An empty complementizer is a hypothetical phonologically null category with a function parallel to that of visible complementizers such as that and for. Its existence in English has been proposed based on the following type of alternation:- He hopes you go ahead with the speech
- He hopes that you go ahead with the speech
Because that can be inserted between the verb and the embedded clause, the original sentence without a visible complementizer would be reanalyzed as
- He hopes øC you go ahead with the speech
This suggests another interpretation of the earlier "how" sentence:
- I read in the paper
øC [it's going to be cold today]
where "how" serves as a specifier to the empty complementizer. This allows for a consistent analysis of another troublesome alternation:
- The man
øC [I saw yesterday] ate my lunch! - The man
øC [I saw yesterday] ate my lunch! - The man
that [I saw yesterday] ate my lunch!
where "OP" represents an invisible interrogative known as an operator
Operator (linguistics)
In linguistics, an operator is a special variety of determiner including the visible interrogatives, the quantifiers, and the hypothetical invisible pronoun denoted Op...
.
In a more general sense, the proposed empty complementizer parallels the suggestion of near-universal empty determiners.
Cantonese
Cantonese
Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
and Mandarin Chinese do not have complementizers at all.
Modern Hebrew
"The Hebrew complementizer she- [ʃe] ‘that’ can be traced back to the Ancient HebrewHebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
complementizer she- ‘that’, which derives from the Hebrew relativizer
Relativizer
In linguistics, a relativizer is a grammatical element used to indicate a relative clause. Not all languages use relativizers; most Indo-European languages use relative pronouns instead, and some languages, such as Japanese, rely solely on word order to indicate relative clauses...
she- ‘that’. There is no consensus about the origin of the latter. It might be a shortened form of the Ancient Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
relativizer
Relativizer
In linguistics, a relativizer is a grammatical element used to indicate a relative clause. Not all languages use relativizers; most Indo-European languages use relative pronouns instead, and some languages, such as Japanese, rely solely on word order to indicate relative clauses...
‘asher ‘that’, which is related to Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
‘ashru ‘place’ (cf. Semitic *‘athar). [...] Alternatively, Ancient Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
‘asher derived from she-, or it was a convergence of Proto-Semitic dhu (cf. Aramaic dī) and ‘asher. The Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
relativizer
Relativizer
In linguistics, a relativizer is a grammatical element used to indicate a relative clause. Not all languages use relativizers; most Indo-European languages use relative pronouns instead, and some languages, such as Japanese, rely solely on word order to indicate relative clauses...
‘ashér is the origin of the Modern Hebrew relativizer
Relativizer
In linguistics, a relativizer is a grammatical element used to indicate a relative clause. Not all languages use relativizers; most Indo-European languages use relative pronouns instead, and some languages, such as Japanese, rely solely on word order to indicate relative clauses...
ashér ‘that’, which is much less common than the Modern Hebrew relativizer she- ‘that’. Whereas Modern Hebrew she- functions both as complementizer and relativizer
Relativizer
In linguistics, a relativizer is a grammatical element used to indicate a relative clause. Not all languages use relativizers; most Indo-European languages use relative pronouns instead, and some languages, such as Japanese, rely solely on word order to indicate relative clauses...
, ashér can only function as a relativizer
Relativizer
In linguistics, a relativizer is a grammatical element used to indicate a relative clause. Not all languages use relativizers; most Indo-European languages use relative pronouns instead, and some languages, such as Japanese, rely solely on word order to indicate relative clauses...
."
Instead of using the she- complementizer, an Israeli formal writer could use the rare complementizer ki ‘that’, which derives from the Ancient Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
complementizer kī ‘that’, from kī ‘because’. [...] As opposed to she- [...] ki should be categorized as a prescriptive complementizer merely. That said, some French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
-speaking immigrants to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
use the complemetizer ki less rarely than other Israelis because of the incidental phonetic similarity to the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
complementizer que ‘that’" - cf. phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching is a linguistic term referring to camouflaged borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root....
.