Spanish clauses without complementizer

Brovetto, Claudia

doi:10.1075/cilt.220.04bro

Cited by 13 publications

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“…In Spanish, some researchers mention that it is normally the subjunctive mood of the embedded clause that allows que to be omitted (Brovetto, 2002;Llinàs-Grau and Fernández-Sánchez, 2011 Brovetto (2002) hypothesizes that one can then expect to find the omission of que with verbs in the complement clause in the subjunctive mood rather than in the indicative mood (although the omission may be still possible in some cases) because the subjunctive mood is associated with unreality or possibility. Interestingly, she notes that the absence of que is not usually possible with verbs of utterance such as decir 'say' or with factive verbs such as confesar 'confess', admitir 'admit' and jurar 'swear' if the embedded clause denotes a realis meaning, but she also mentions that with these types of verbs, the omission can occur if the indicative mood of the embedded clause conveys an irrealis meaning as in (9).…”

Section: Omission Of the Complementizer Que In Spanishmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As mentioned in the previous section, the semantics of the matrix verbs in Spanish include a wider variety of verb types than in English. This study, based on previous studies, analyzes four semantic groups of verbs that allow the zero complementizer: (i) Verbs of cognition/mental act (creer 'think, believe', pensar 'think' and suponer 'guess'); (ii) verbs of communication (decir 'say' and confesar 'confess'); (iii) verbs of volition and desire (esperar 'hope', rogar 'beg', desear 'desire', pedir 'ask', suplicar 'request, beg', solicitar 'request' and recomendar 'recommend'); and (iv) verbs of emotion (lamentar 'lament' and temer 'fear') (Many of these verbs are those verbs that have often been mentioned in the previous studies as typical verbs taking a zero complementizer in Spanish (Brovetto, 2002;Travis, 2006;Vázquez Rozas, 2006)). …”

Section: The Semantics Of the Main Verbs And The Omission Of The Compmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The semantic group of verbs that allow the zero complementizer in Spanish is not limited to the so-called bridge verbs as in English, but includes many other types of predicates. For the matrix verbs that can typically occur without a complementizer, the previous studies usually mention verbs of propositional attitude such as the 'suppose' class of verbs (e.g., suponer 'suppose,' dudar 'doubt,' parecer 'seem'), emotion verbs such as the 'lament' class of verbs (e.g., lamentar 'lament,' preocuparse 'be worried,' alegrarse 'be glad,' sentir 'be sorry') and verbs of volition and desire (e.g., querer 'want,' desear 'desire,' esperar 'hope'), all of which usually take the subjunctive in their embedded clause (Delbecque and Lamiroy, 1999;Brovetto, 2002;Llinàs-Grau and Fernández-Sánchez, 2011) (CREA, novel, Costa Rica, 1996) The fact that the omission of the complementizer in Spanish relies heavily on the semantics of the matrix verb is different from English. These semantic classes of the matrix verb in Spanish are an important basis on which the CREA data samples of this study are drawn, but as we will see, one extra verb class will be added to the list, namely, verbs of communication such as decir 'say' and confesar 'confess', based on the data samples found in the CREA: It has also regularly been noted that the omission of the complementizer in Spanish occurs more often in formal contexts than in informal ones, unlike in English (Demonte and Fernández-Soriano, 2009).…”

Section: Omission Of the Complementizer Que In Spanishmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…"I hope (that) the problems caused by the hurricane will be solved soon." (example taken from Brovetto (2002) Although this observation gives us an insight into the phenomenon studied, the example in (4), taken from the CREA corpus collected by the Real Academia Española, shows that the embedded proposition does not necessarily have to convey an irrealis meaning to allow for the zero complementizer:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Brovetto (2002) proposes that the Spanish complementizer que 'that' may be optional when, for example, the embedded proposition conveys a meaning of uncertainty or an irrealis meaning as shown in (3): (3) Espero (que) se solucionen pronto los problemas causados por el huracán. "I hope (that) the problems caused by the hurricane will be solved soon."…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Grammaticalization of the Spanish Complement-taking Verb without a Complementizer

Yoon¹

2015

Journal of Social Sciences

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This study examines authentic data samples taken from the Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual (CREA) in order to uncover any semantic trends that can be commonly observed in verbs taking a sentential complement without the complementizer que in Spanish. In doing so, special attention is given to the grammaticalization process that can account for epistemic fragments in which the semantic meaning of the verb becomes attenuated and where the main verb alone without a complementizer functions like an adverbial phrase. Four semantic groups of verbs with a zero complementizer are analyzed: (i) Verbs of cognition/mental act (e.g., creer 'think'); (ii) verbs of communication (e.g., decir 'say'); (iii) verbs of volition and desire (e.g., esperar 'hope'); and iv) verbs of emotion (e.g., temer 'fear'). These verb groups allowing a zero complementizer show differences with respect to (i) the subjunctive and indicative use in the embedded clause, (ii) the formal Vs. informal registers and (iii) the use of the complement-taking verbs as a fragment/parenthetical or an epistemic marker (in order to capture the degree of grammaticalization). This study proposes that not all the verbs that allow for the omission of the complementizer undergo the same degree of grammaticalization, but the semantics of the main verb interacting with all those factors play a role in determining the likelihood of the omission and the possibility that the main verb can actually be used as a floated parenthetical with a more subjective meaning that involves a more active process of grammaticalization. It is also shown that the degree of grammaticalization differs from verb to verb, as well as from verb class to verb class.

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Section: Omission Of the Complementizer Que In Spanishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Semantics Of the Main Verbs And The Omission Of The Compmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Omission Of the Complementizer Que In Spanishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The Grammaticalization of the Spanish Complement-taking Verb without a Complementizer

Yoon¹

2015

Journal of Social Sciences

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Complementizer Deletion

Bianchi

Frascarelli

2017

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition

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This chapter reviews the phenomenology of complementizer‐deletion and the approaches that have emerged in successive phases of the generative framework, focusing mainly on English, and distinguishing two subtypes: (i) optional C‐deletion in embedded declarative clauses, and (ii) “Doubly Filled Comp” (DFC) effects in clauses hosting a wh ‐phrase in CP, where the appearance or omission of the local complementizer is subject to diachronic and cross‐linguistic variation. Not included here are “Complementizer‐trace effects.” The approaches to this phenomenology can be divided into three major phases. In the GB phase, DFC effects were analyzed by means of a surface filter, while optional C‐deletion was reduced to the Empty Category Principle: a complementizer can be optionally deleted only if it is properly governed by a verbal head. In the early 1990a, a “truncation” account emerged, based on the observation that C‐less clauses disallow Topicalization and Negative preposing in them. It was argued that C‐less clauses are bare IPs; later on, the emergence of the split CP structure allowed for a less radical truncation analysis, as well as for a reconsideration of DFC effects (ii). Starting from the late 1990s, the interface between syntax and the external systems came into focus. Investigation of C‐deletion in Italian subjunctive clauses concentrated on the syntax–semantics interface, while an analysis of optional C‐deletion (i) was proposed on the basis of the syntax–prosody interface. Prosodic evidence is here provided, based on elicited data. Finally, a potential parallelism is discussed between optional C‐deletion (i) and the phenomenology of “embedded root phenomena.”

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A corpus-based study of infinitival and sentential complement constructions in Spanish

Yoon

Wulff

2016

Constructional Approaches to Language

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Spanish clauses without complementizer

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

The Grammaticalization of the Spanish Complement-taking Verb without a Complementizer

The Grammaticalization of the Spanish Complement-taking Verb without a Complementizer

Complementizer Deletion

A corpus-based study of infinitival and sentential complement constructions in Spanish

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