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Verbs with sentential subjects

The following contrast involving complementizers surfaces with sentential subjects:
(611)0(611
(612)
*(That) John is crazy is likely. 

Indicative sentential subjects obligatorily have complementizers while infinitival sentential subjects may or may not have a complementizer. Also if is possible as the complementizer of an object clause but not as the complementizer of a sentential subject.

(612)0(612
(613)
S0.t:comp that/whether/for/nil  (613)0(613
(614)
S0.t:mode inf/ind  (614)0(614
(615)
S0.t:assign-comp inf_nil 

If the sentential subject is finite and a complementizer does not adjoin in, the assign-comp feature of the S0 node of the embedding clause and the root node of the embedded clause will fail to unify. If a complementizer adjoins in, there will be no feature-mismatch because the root of the complementizer tree is not specified for the assign-comp feature. The comp feature nil is split into two assign-comp features ind_nil and inf_nil to capture the fact that there are certain configurations in which it is acceptable for an infinitival clause to lack a complementizer but not acceptable for an indicative clause to lack a complementizer.


next up previous contents
Next: That-trace and for-trace effects Up: Complementizer Selection Previous: Verbs with object sentential
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