Complement-taking Verbs Research Articles

Semantic Differentiation between Three Tokelauan Complementizers

Tokelauan has a number of subject-complement-taking verbs that express ideas of modality, aspectuality, and evaluation. In contrast with the situation in closely related languages, three different complementizers are available to introduce subject-complement clauses. Many predicates allow a choice between two, or in at least one case, all three of the complementizers. It will be demonstrated that the selection of complementizer is influenced by several semantic factors: the type of modality expressed, the agentivity of the complement clause, and whether the matrix clause is negative or affirmative. The semantic specialization that these morphemes have developed exhibits the characteristic of persistence commonly found in grammaticalization processes. 1. INTRODUCTION. In Tokelauan, a western Polynesian language closely related to Samoan and Tuvaluan,I a semantic contrast has developed between three complementizer morphemes, ke, oi, and ona, which are used to introduce noun clauses. These complementizers have cognates in other Polynesian languages, and two of them, ke and oi, reflect morphemes reconstructed for ProtoPolynesian. However, in no other language do they form the kind of paradigm that is found in Tokelauan. Some complement-taking verbs can occur with only one of the complementizers, others can occur with two, and at least one verb can occur with all three. When this is the case, they appear at first glance to be in free variation. Note that in (I) both the underlined clauses are dependent on mafai 'be possible' and that in both cases the matrix verb is negated, yet the first complement is introduced by ke and the second by ona. In (2), the complement in (a) is introduced by ona and that in (b) by oi.2 However, I shall demonstrate that there is a strong semantic tie between the complementizer and the nature of the construction as a whole, and that the semantic specialization that the complementizers have developed is typical of observed processes of grammaticalization, in particular the characteristic of persistence.