Notes on Clausal Complements in English

Abstract

This paper considers clausal complements in English, asking whether the dislocated clausal complement is based-generated in the surface position or it is syntactically moved from the base position to the sentence-initial position. Pointing out problems of the base-generated approach in Koster (1978) and Alrenga (2005), and adapting the movement approach in Takahashi (2010), we suggest the modifier analysis of clausal complements under the theory of C-T inheritance and copy movement in Chomsky (2001, 2004, 2008). The modifier analysis of clausal complements assumes three suggestions. First clausal complements have propositional content and they compose with abstract DPs, like THE FACT, which take a clausal complement CP as its complement. Second, we suggest that clausal complements are modifiers of abstract DPs. Third, the moved abstract DP, THE FACT, is unpronounced or deleted due to the recoverability condition, since both the clausal complement and the abstract DP have the modification relation.