The Grammatical Functions of Complement Clauses

Current syntactic theories differ greatly in how abstract syntactic structure is represented. All theories have some kind of distinction between subjects and non-subjects, but differences between nonsubject grammatical functions are often treated as secondary or derived. We will show that the fine distinctions among grammatical functions provided by a theory like LFG are necessary in the description of the syntax of clausal complements.

The grammatical function of complement clauses has been the subject of some controversy in the LFG community. Traditionally, finite complement clauses were assumed to bear the grammatical function COMP. More recently, Alsina et al. (1996) proposed that the COMP function is superfluous, and that all finite complements have the grammatical function OBJ.

We will show that clausal complements (to be more exact, non-subject, non-extraposed finite clausal complements) can in fact bear either grammatical function: some clausal complements bear the grammatical function OBJ, and some bear COMP. In some languages, those we call "mixed" languages, both kinds of clausal complements are attested, with the function of the clausal complement depending on the governing predicate. The existence of mixed languages clearly shows that a distinction between COMP and OBJ is necessary in the description of the syntax of clausal complementation, and more generally that the richer inventory of grammatical functions traditionally assumed in LFG is justified.

In some languages (for example Spanish and Icelandic), all clausal complements bear the OBJ function. Clausal complements in such languages alternate with NP OBJs and share the grammatical properties of NP OBJs. For example, they can trigger transitivity marking on the verb, they can topicalize and enter into other unbounded dependencies, and they can coordinate with an NP OBJ. In contrast, clausal complements that bear the COMP grammatical function do not share these properties.

Mixed languages, languages in which clausal complements with the same syntactic form can be OBJs or COMPs depending upon the governing predicate, include Slave (Athapaskan), German, Swedish and English. Consider the case of German. In our analysis, verbs like glauben 'believe' and sagen `say' always take an OBJ, which can be nominal or clausal. A clausal OBJ has the grammatical properties expected of an OBJ; for example, it can topicalize:

On the other hand, verbs like sich freuen `be happy' and informieren `inform' take a COMP, which lacks the grammatical properties expected of an OBJ; for example, it cannot topicalize:

We provide further evidence from German and other mixed languages for the existence of OBJ and COMP clausal complements. We also discuss some distributional similarities between COMP and OBJ clausal complements: for example, clausal complements bearing either the OBJ or COMP function are usually positioned at the end of the sentence. This is to be expected in a theory like LFG, in which phrasal distribution facts have an independent status from functional classification.