Complement-taking Verbs Research Articles

Preparing Student Clinicians to Provide Recast Therapy on Complement Clauses: A Training Program.

This study reports on a program to train student clinicians to provide recast therapy on complement clauses to children with developmental language disorder (DLD). To determine the efficacy of the program, we conducted secondary data analysis based on Owen Van Horne et al. (2023) and examined student clinicians' recasts after training and children's progress after treatment. Three student clinicians received a two-stage training, followed by a real intervention program targeting complement clauses in six children with DLD. A third of the intervention sessions were coded for the total number and number of unique verbs in complement clauses provided by the student clinicians. An elicited production task was completed to test children's knowledge of the target structure. On average, student clinicians provided 30 targeted recasts to each child during each intervention session. They provided a greater number of and more variable input for that compared to WH complements. Children demonstrated significant improvement only in WH, but not in that, complements. A targeted training program could strengthen clinicians' ability to provide recast therapy on complex syntax; however, future refinements should shorten and broaden training to include more targets. A mismatch between input patterns and learning patterns was observed. WH complement input is more stable than that input, given the less variable complement-taking verbs provided by the student clinicians and the overtness of the WH word as a stable complementizer, which may have facilitated the identification and extraction of the target syntactic structure.

Spanning complement-taking verbs and spanning complementizers: On the realization of presuppositional clauses

The paper presents an account of the (non-)realization of the DP shell in presuppositional clauses within a system where such clauses are uniformly DPs. It is argued that the DP shell is realized by a spanning verb (in languages like Russian) or a spanning complementizer (in languages like English). The analysis is extended to account for the distribution of complementizer drop.

On the extended uses of -ki and -m nominalization constructions as face-threat mitigators in Korean

In this paper, we investigate how Korean -ki and -m nominalization constructions have come to also express speaker stance. We first identify the semantic distinctions between Korean -ki and -m nominalization constructions in terms of their realis/irrealis semantics, then further examine how differences in their syntagmatic affinity—more specifically, their particular predisposition toward different types of complement-taking verbs—give rise to subtle differences in their stance marking functions. In addition, we also address how -ki and -m nominalization constructions have extended their functions and can now be used as face-threat mitigating devices. This study sheds light on how the inherent semantics of individual nominalization constructions and their syntagmatic relations facilitate the dynamic drifts of the nominalization constructions from referential to pragmatic uses.

Factivity as a trigger of agreement with complement clauses in Moksha Mordvin

The paper is aimed at finding the factors determining the choice between the subject and subject-object agreement patterns of complement-taking verbs in Moksha Mordvin. We analyze the following factors: factivity, truth value of the proposition in the complement clause, given vs. new, information structure.

LEXICAL-SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF SECONDARY ASPECTUAL VERBS IN SERBIAN

The present research is an attempt at systematic and consistent formal analysis of lexical semantics of Serbian secondary aspectual verbs krenuti, uzeti and stati. Theoretical background of the research is the Lexical Projectionist Model proposed by B. Levin (1993), along with the primary postulates of aspectual event segmentation introduced by A. Freed (1979). We claim that the primary lexical meaning of the verbs krenuti, uzeti and stati is the key to their capacity to appear with additional (modal and phase) denotations when they are used as complement-taking verbs. We propose formal lexical specifications which are to encode all the relevant semantic features and complement preferences for each verb under analysis, on the level of the lexicon. Secondary aspectualisers also carry markers of inherent semantics which influence the way in which they denote phase: krenuti is additionally marked for dynamicity and causality, whereas uzeti and stati both express strong dynamic Aktionsart on the constructional (syntactic) level. In terms of event segmentation, krenuti modifies either the onset or the nucleus of the aspectual event, while uzeti and stati as a rule refer to its nucleus. Consequently, out of the three analysed verbs, only krenuti can appear with the complement whose event can be cancelled (cf. Dufey 2006, Nagy 2016, Milivojević 2021c).

The Quotative in Bashkir

Evidentiality is a widely researched category in contemporary linguistics, both from the viewpoint of grammatical expression and also that of semantics/pragmatics. Amongst markers expressing information source is the illocutionary evidential quotative, which codes a speech report with an explicit reference to the quoted source. This article investigates the quotative particle tip in Bashkir, a Kipchak-Bulgar Turkic language spoken in the Russian Federation. In its default quotative meaning, tip signals direct speech and functions as a syntactic complementiser. This function was found to have extended from spoken utterances to coding thoughts and experiences in the context of semi-direct speech. A separate function of tip is its use as an adverbialiser signalling a logical relation and conveying the meaning of intention/purpose.
 Different categories were found to interact in the functions of tip. In the context of semi-direct speech, the meaning tip conveys is linked with the semantic dimension of subjectivity, which pertains to the cognitive processing and expressing of information by the speaker/experiencer. The interplay of the marker tip was investigated in conjunction with ten complement-taking verbs, whose degree and strength of subjectivity were found to range from neutral to strong. When combined with küreü ‘see’, tip introduces visual ambiguity and epistemic uncertainty, for example, in dream scenes. With the verbs beleü ‘know’ and išeteü ‘hear’, tip conveys a multisubjective meaning: in addition to signalling what the experiential subject has heard or found out, the marker also codes the involvement of some other subject, the original source, thus giving voice to multiple speakers and merging them.

Complement clause constructions in Nkami

Drawing from synchronic natural data, this paper canvasses complement clause constructions (CCC) of Nkami, an endangered Kwa language of Ghana. It raises issues that are of general concern in complementation, syntax, typology and grammaticalization. Among other things, it comes out that unlike other Kwa languages which have only one explicit complementizer, Nkami has two clearly distinct functional complementizers, yɛɛ and bɛɛ. While the former patterns with utterance verbs, the latter collocates with all other complement-taking verbs (CTV). Also, both yɛɛ and bɛɛ perform several other grammatical functions and are diachronically traceable to the verbs yɛɛ ‘say’ and dʒi bɛ/bɛɛ ‘be like’, respectively. Moreover, the CTVs in Nkami may be categorized into five semantic types: utterance/speaking, sensation, emotion, cognition/thinking and secondary (concept) verbs including ʃɛ asɪ ‘begin’, bɔ ‘plan/try/pretend’, sɛ ‘require’ and kpa ‘want’. Lastly, Nkami predominantly demonstrates the sentence-like type of complement clause; and so, except for CCCs that contain a secondary (concept) verb as a CTV, a complement clause in Nkami is virtually open to all morphosyntactic and grammatical ‘privileges’ available to a main clause.

The Production of Complement Clauses in Children With Language Impairment.

The purpose of this research was to provide a comprehensive description of complement-clause production in children with language impairment. Complement clauses were examined with respect to types of complement structure produced, verb use, and both semantic and syntactic accuracy. A group of 17 children with language impairment (mean age = 6;10 [years; months]) was compared with a group of 17 younger children with typical language development (mean age = 4;6). Examples of both nonfinite complements with different subjects and sentential complements involving a range of complement-taking verbs were collected using specially designed elicitation tasks. The children with language impairment were able to construct both types of complement clauses, had access to a range of verbs that are utilized within these constructions, and had knowledge of the grammatical constraints imposed by these verbs. However, they were more restricted in their production of sentential complements and produced significantly fewer semantically accurate complements (both finite and nonfinite) than the children with typical language development. Children with language impairment evidenced deviant rather than merely delayed development in the area of complement-clause production. Complex sentences such as complement clauses need to be targeted in language intervention programs.

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

This study examines authentic data samples taken from the Corpus de Referencia del Espanol 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.

A codificação das relações gramaticais nos complementos oracionais do Apinaje

The coding of grammatical relations in languages of the Jê family displays great morphosyntactic complexity manifested in main, as well as in subordinate clauses. In Apinaje, the coding of core arguments in simple clauses combines a nominative pattern, manifested by means of independent pronouns, and an absolutive pattern, expressed by person prefixes attached to verbs. Additionally, a certain class of verbs marks core arguments with oblique postpositions, thus displaying a noncanonical pattern; complement-taking verbs belong in this category. In the context of complementation, the ergative alignment will occur depending on the correferenciality conditions between main and subordinate clause subjects.

Nanti self-quotation

This paper describes two quotation strategies employed by speakers of Nanti, one involving grammaticalized quotatives and another involving complement-taking verbs of saying, and examines the consequences of the pragmatic differences between these strategies for two key questions in the study of evidentiality: first, the importance of degree of grammaticalization in delimiting ‘evidentials’; and second, the importance of the analytical distinction between epistemic modal and ‘source of information’ evidential meanings. Nanti use of the two quotation strategies is specifically analyzed in the context of self-quotation practices in order to isolate specific aspects of their pragmatics. This analysis shows that the lexical quotative strategy expresses that the quoted party is not only the source of the content of the utterance, but is also an ‘illocutionary source’, who is committed to the interactional force of the utterance, while the grammaticalized quotative strategy does not indicate such a commitment. The functional difference between lexical and grammatical quotative strategies in Nanti is compared with differences between lexical and grammaticalized quotative and reportive strategies found in other languages, and the Nanti results are found to be consistent with cross-linguistic tendencies towards functional differentiation of lexical quotative and reportives, on the one hand, and their grammaticalized counterparts, on the other. These facts, it is argued, motivate a distinction on functional grounds between grammaticalized reportives and quotatives and their lexical counterparts, supporting the use of grammaticalization as a criterion for distinguishing evidentials proper from evidential strategies. The commitment-augmenting function of the lexical quotative construction in Nanti self-quotation is then examined in light of the commitment-diminishing function commonly attributed to quotatives and reportives (and also found in Nanti). It is argued that both types of commitment-modulating effects emerge as implicatures from the basic information and illocutionary source semantics of Nanti lexical quotatives, and from pragmatic reasoning based on whether the quoted party is first person or third person. The fact that both commitment-modulating functions of Nanti lexical quotatives are derived from semantics of lexical quotatives elements is argued to show that the distinction between information source and epistemic modal meanings, often taken to be a pivotal notional distinction in defining evidentiality as a grammatical category, is also essential to the proper analysis of the pragmatics of evidential strategies in discourse.

Production of infinitival complements by children with specific language impairment

The purpose of this study was to explore the production of infinitival complements by children with specific language impairment (SLI) as compared with mean length of utterance (MLU)-matched children in an effort to clarify inconsistencies in the literature. Spontaneous language samples were analysed for infinitival complements (reduced infinitives and true infinitives). Participants included children with SLI (n = 19; 5;2–7;10) and children with typical language (n = 19; MLU; 3;0–5;9). There was no group difference in the number of infinitival complements and the number of different complement-taking verbs. However, the SLI group produced more true infinitives than the MLU group. The SLI group was less accurate than the MLU group on inclusion of obligatory infinitival to, with 80.21% accuracy (SD = 29.42) and 99.81% accuracy (SD = 0.85), respectively. As a group, children with SLI did not have problems with the clausal structure of infinitives. However, they had difficulty with the specific grammatical requirement of infinitival clauses, that is, the inclusion of the infinitival marker.

German children's productivity with simple transitive and complement-clause constructions: Testing the effects of frequency and variability

Abstract The development of abstract schemas and productive rules in language is affected by both token and type frequencies. High token frequencies and surface similarities help to discover formal and functional commonalities between utterances and categorize them as instances of the same schema. High type frequencies and diversity help to develop slots in these schemas, which allow the production and comprehension of novel utterances. In the current study we looked at both token and type frequencies in two related constructions in German child-directed speech: simple transitive and complement-clause constructions. Both constructions contain high frequency verbs, which potentially support the development of verb-specific schemas. However, only the frequent verbs in the transitive constructions occur with a variety of subject types, which also supports the development of a slot in the subject position. We then used an elicited production task to compare 4- and 5-year-old German-speaking children's productivity with simple transitive constructions and complement-clause constructions. The children were prompted to change the subjects of high and low frequency simple transitive verbs, such as essen ‘eat’ and naschen ‘nibble’, mental-state complement-taking verbs, such as denken ‘think’ and vermuten ‘presume’, and communication complement-taking verbs, such as sagen ‘say’ and berichten ‘report’. In accordance with earlier findings, children had less difficulty producing new utterances with high frequency transitive verbs than with low frequency transitive verbs. For the other verb classes, however, we found either reverse frequency effects or no frequency effects. For these verb classes, children's productivity can be determined by diversity rather than simple token frequency. We discuss how token frequency interacts with diversity, discourse function, semantic complexity, and syntactic complexity.

Usage frequencies of complement-taking verbs in Spanish and English: Data from Spanish monolinguals and Spanish—English bilinguals

Verb bias, or the tendency of a verb to appear with a certain type of complement, has been employed in psycholinguistic literature as a tool to test competing models of sentence processing. To date, the vast majority of sentence processing research involving verb bias has been conducted almost exclusively with monolingual speakers, and predominantly with monolingual English speakers, despite the fact that most of the world's population is bilingual. To test the generality of competing theories of sentence comprehension, it is important to conduct cross-linguistic studies of sentence processing and to add bilingual data to theories of sentence comprehension. Given this, it is critical for the field to develop verb bias estimates from monolingual speakers of languages other than English and from bilingual populations. We begin to address these issues in two norming studies. Study 1 provides verb bias norming data for 135 Spanish verbs. A second aim of Study 1 was to determine whether verb bias estimates remain stable over time. In Study 2, we asked whether Spanish-English speakers are able to learn verb-specific information, such as verb bias, in their second language. The answer to this question is critical to conducting studies that examine when, during the course of sentence comprehension, bilingual speakers exploit verb information specific to the second language. To facilitate cross-linguistic work, we compared our verb bias results with those provided by monolingual English speakers in a previous norming study conducted by Garnsey, Lotocky, Pearlmutter, and Myers (1997). Our Spanish data demonstrated that individual verbs showed significant similarities in their verb bias across the 3 years of data collection. We also show that bilinguals are able to learn the biases of verbs in their second language, even when immersed in the first language environment. Appendixes A-C, containing the bilingual norms discussed in the article, may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Development of word order in German complement-clause constructions: Effects of input frequencies, lexical items, and discourse function

We investigate the development of word order in German children’s spontaneous production of complement clauses. From soon after their second birthday, young German children use both verb-final complements with complementizers and verb-second complements without complementizers. By their third birthday they use both kinds of complement clauses with a variety of complement-taking verbs. Early in development, however, verb-final complements and verb-second complements are used with separate sets of complement-taking verbs, and they are used with separate sets of item-specific main-clause phrases. For example, initially phrases such as ‘I want to see’ were used exclusively with verb-final complements, whereas phrases such as ‘do you see’ and ‘you have to say’ were used exclusively with verb-second complements. Only later in development— when specific complement-taking verbs were used with both verb-second and verb-final complements, with a greater variety of main-clause phrases, and when specific main-clause phrases were used with both verb-second and verb-final complements—was there evidence for structural links between these various, item-based, complement-clause constructions.

Examining the role of lexical frequency in the acquisition and processing of sentential complements

We present empirical data showing that the relative frequency with which a verb normally appears in a syntactic construction predicts young children's ability to remember and repeat sentences instantiating that construction. Children aged 2;10–5;8 years were asked to repeat grammatical and ungrammatical sentential complement sentences (e.g., ‘ I think + S’). The sentences contained complement-taking verbs (CTVs) used with differing frequencies in children's natural speech. All children repeated sentences containing high frequency CTVs (e.g., think) more accurately than those containing low frequency CTVs (e.g., hear), and made more sophisticated corrections to ungrammatical sentences containing high frequency CTVs. The data suggest that, like adults, children are sensitive to lexico-constructional collocations. The implications for language acquisition are discussed.

Age differences in sentence production.

Two experiments have been completed using experimental techniques to study language production under controlled conditions. In Experiment 1, young and older adults were given two, three, or four words and asked to compose a sentence. Older adults' responses were similar to those of young adults when given two or three words. When given four words, the older adults made more errors and their responses were shorter and less elaborate than those of the young adults. In Experiment 2, simple intransitive verbs (smiled), transitive verbs (replaced), and complement-taking verbs (expected) were contrasted. The responses of older adults were similar to those of young adults given intransitive and transitive verbs. Given complement-taking verbs, young adults produced complex sentences, whereas the older adults produced simpler, less complex sentences; the older adults also made many errors. Both experiments found that older adults respond more slowly than young adults.

The acquisition of finite complement clauses in English: A corpus-based analysis

This article examines the development of finite complement clauses in the speech of seven English-speaking children aged 1;2 to 5;2. It shows that in most of children’s complex utterances that seem to include a finite complement clause, the main clause does not express a full proposition; rather, it functions as an epistemic marker, attention getter, or marker of illocutionary force. The whole construction thus contains only a single proposition expressed by the apparent complement clause. As children grow older, some of the ‘‘main clauses’’ become more substantial and new complement-taking verbs emerge that occur with truly embedded complement clauses. However, since the use of these constructions is limited to only a few verbs, we argue that they are not yet licensed by a general schema or rule; rather, they are ‘‘constructional islands’’ organized around individual verbs.

Long distance agreement in Godoberi (Daghestanian) complement clauses

The term long distance agreement is used here for a construction in which the complement-taking verb agrees with an argument of its complement clause. Long distance agreement in gender occurs with certain complement-taking verbs in Godoberi, a Nakh-Daghestanian language. This kind of agreement is quite unusual cross-linguistically, and unexpected also from the point of view of current theories of agreement. While Daghestanian agreement syntax is unusual in several other respects as well, I show in this paper that long-distance agreement in Godoberi is not as exotic as it appears at first sight. The complement-taking verbs with which it occurs are those that commonly occur in clause-union constructions in other languages, and a similar analysis is proposed for Godoberi here. In this perspective, long distance agreement can be taken as one symptom of incipient grammaticalization of the complement-taking verbs. I cite parallels from other languages and end with a brief general discussion of the role of grammaticalization in the diachronic spread of agreement to new targets

American English usage frequencies for noun phrase and tensed sentence complement-taking verbs.

The present research documents the American English usage frequencies for 136 verbs that occur with noun phrase and tensed sentence complements (e.g., accepted, noun phrase complement: The student knew the answer yesterday, tensed sentence complement: The student knew the answer was correct). This class of verbs has been the focus of numerous empirical studies investigating how syntactic ambiguity is resolved during language comprehension (Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; Garnsey, Pearlmutter, Myers, & Lotocky, 1997; Holmes, Stowe, & Cupples, 1989; Kennedy, Murray, Jennings, & Reid, 1989; Kennison, 1995; Rayner & Frazier, 1987; Trueswell, Tanenhaus, & Kello, 1993). The frequencies for noun phrase complements, tensed sentence complements, prepositional phrase complements, infinitival complements, and other usages are provided, as well as the frequencies with which specific verbs occur with the overt complementizer that in tensed sentence complements.