Noun complement clauses as referential modifiers

Abstract

A number of recent analyses propose that so-called noun complement clauses should be analyzed as a type of relative clause. In this paper, I present a number of complications for any analysis that equates noun complement clauses to relative clauses, and conclude that this type of analysis is on the wrong track. I present cross-linguistic evidence showing that the syntactic behavior of noun complement clauses does not pattern with relative clauses. Patterns of complementizer choice and complementizer drop as well as patterns involving main clause phenomena and extraction differ in the two constructions, which I argue is unexpected under a relative clause analysis that involves operator movement. Instead I present an alternative analysis in which I propose that the referentiality of a noun complement clause is linked to its syntactic behavior. Following recent work, I claim that referential clauses have a syntactically truncated left-periphery, and this truncation can account for the lack of main clause phenomena in noun complement clauses. I argue that the truncation analysis is also able to accommodate complementizer data patterns more easily than relative clause analyses that appeal to operator movement.

CP Complements to D

“…The proposed structure for prepositional DCs is consistent with earlier work on Scandinavian DPs showing that PPs are never complements to N or D, but always adjoined to DP (Hankamer In section 1, we discussed the insight expressed by Stowell (1981) and others that the relation between an N and the CP in a DC construction is semantically different from the relation between the corresponding V and a CP in a V‫ם‬CP combination. Stowell suggests that apposition might be a better name for the relation between the N and the CP, and this idea is repeated by de Cuba (2017). Now that we have a firmer grasp of what the syntactic structure has to be, we can return to the question of the semantic relation between the N and the CP.…”

“…Let us consider how these syntactic analyses relate to the proposals in the literature about DCs. One major strand, represented by Stowell 1981, Grimshaw 1990, Moulton 2015, and de Cuba 2017, agrees in rejecting the traditional analysis ( 49) where the CP is a complement to N, and suggests (with varying degrees of explicitness) something like (50) or (51). Again, consider Stowell 1981:200: Thus the derived nominal heads actually refer to the same thing that their "complements" do: the object argument of the verb.…”

The semi-complementizer shuō and non-referential CPs in Mandarin Chinese

“…In this paper, I claim that shuō is a complementizer (C), and crucially that shuō introduces a specific type of CP called non-referential CPs, in the sense of de Cuba (2017). By looking into the patterns of shuō in more detail, I show that there exist environments in which shuō is consistently ruled out, which suggests that shuō only introduces a subtype of clauses (including finite and non-finite clauses), that are non-referential.…”

Avoiding Gaps in Romance: Evidence from Italian and French for a Structural Parsing Principle

“…For one thing, some authors have argued (e.g., Arsenijević 2009) that at an abstract level clausal complements should be analyzed as a special type of relative clause, since both involve operator movement. However, de Cuba 2017 offers a criticism of this claim. Also, the experimental results of Staub et al.…”