Sentential Complements Research Articles

Особенности причастий в современном эвенкийском устном языке (по корпусу рассказов 2005–2011 гг.)

The paper considers the use of single participles and participial clauses in the corpus of oral stories in Evenki. Their use as head noun modifiers and as sentential complements are illustrated. The formal analysis for participial clauses in terms of generative grammar is proposed.

Introducing the Special Issue: Clausal and Nominal Complements in Monolingual and Bilingual Grammars

To introduce this Special Issue entitled Clausal and Nominal Complements in Monolingual and Bilingual Grammars, we begin by explaining what originally motivated this Special Issue [...]

The Processing of Relative Clause Attachment as a Tool for Resolving a Problem in Typology of Relative Clauses: Preliminary Evidence from Thai Data.

In typological literature, there has been disagreement as to whether there should be distinction between relative clauses (RCs) and nominal sentential complements (NSCs) in pro-drop languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Khmer and Thai. In pro-drop languages, nouns can be dropped when its reference can be retrieved from context. Therefore, what has been defined as a gap in RCs (i.e., the controversial element hereafter) and has often been used for differentiating RCs from NSCs might actually be a zero pronoun, making syntactic structures of RC and NSCs indistinguishable. This article reviews the study of the processing of RC attachment in Thai and discusses how its results provide preliminary evidence supporting that RCs and NSCs in Thai are syntactically different constructions and the controversial element in RCs is not a zero pronoun. The article suggests a new promising tool for investigating an unresolved typological problem.

Role of Two Types of Syntactic Embedding in Belief Attribution in Adults with or without Asperger Syndrome.

The role of syntax in belief attribution (BA) is not completely understood in healthy adults and understudied in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Embedded syntax could be useful either for the development of Theory of Mind (ToM) (Emergence account) or more generally over the lifespan (Reasoning account). Two hypotheses have been explored, one suggesting that embedding itself (Relatives and Complement sentences and Metarepresentation account) is important for ToM and another one considering that the embedding of a false proposition into a true one (Complement sentences and Misrepresentation account) is important. The goals of this study were to evaluate (1) the role of syntax in ToM (Emergence vs. Reasoning account), (2) the type of syntax implied in ToM (Metarepresentation vs. Misrepresentation account), and (3) the verbally mediated strategies which compensate for ToM deficits in adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS). Fifty NeuroTypical (NT) adults and 22 adults with AS were involved in a forced-choice task including ±ToM tasks (BA and a control task, physical causation, PC) under four Interference conditions (silence, syllable repetition, relative sentences repetition, and complement sentences repetition). The non-significant ±ToM × Interference interaction effect in the NT group did not support the Reasoning account and thus suggests that syntax is useful only for ToM development (i.e., Emergence account). Results also indicated that repeating complement clauses put NT participants in a dual task whereas repeating relative clauses did not, suggesting that repeating relatives is easier for NT than repeating complements. This could be an argument in favor of the Misrepresentation account. However, this result should be interpreted with caution because our results did not support the Reasoning account. Moreover, AS participants (but not NT participants) were more disrupted by ±ToM tasks when asked to repeat complement sentences compared to relative clause sentences. This result is in favor of the Misrepresentation account and indirectly suggests verbally mediated strategies for ToM in AS. To summarize, our results are in favor of the Emergence account in NT and of Reasoning and Misrepresentation accounts in adults with AS. Overall, this suggests that adults with AS use complement syntax to compensate for ToM deficits.

The influence of sense-contingent argument structure frequencies on ambiguity resolution in aphasia

Verbs with multiple senses can show varying argument structure frequencies, depending on the underlying sense. When acknowledge is used to mean ‘recognise’, it takes a direct object (DO), but when it is used to mean ‘admit’ it prefers a sentence complement (SC). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether people with aphasia (PWA) can exploit such meaning-structure probabilities during the reading of temporarily ambiguous sentences, as demonstrated for neurologically healthy individuals (NHI) in a self-paced reading study (Hare et al., 2003). Eleven people with mild or moderate aphasia and eleven neurologically healthy control participants read sentences while their eyes were tracked. Using adapted materials from the study by Hare et al. target sentences containing an SC structure (e.g. He acknowledged (that) his friends would probably help him a lot) were presented following a context prime that biased either a direct object (DO-bias) or sentence complement (SC-bias) reading of the verbs. Half of the stimuli sentences did not contain that so made the post verbal noun phrase (his friends) structurally ambiguous. Both groups of participants were influenced by structural ambiguity as well as by the context bias, indicating that PWA can, like NHI, use their knowledge of a verb's sense-based argument structure frequency during online sentence reading. However, the individuals with aphasia showed delayed reading patterns and some individual differences in their sensitivity to context and ambiguity cues. These differences compared to the NHI may contribute to difficulties in sentence comprehension in aphasia.

Research on the Noun Phrase Complement for Education of the Marriage Immigrants - Focusing on the Sentential Complement -

본고는 결혼 이민자를 대상으로 하여 그들의 명사구 보문절 사용 양상을 분석하고 교재 내 명사구 보문절 제시 양상을 살펴보며 새로운 제시 방안을 찾는 데 그 목적이 있다.BR 이에 본고는 『이민자를 위한 한국어와 한국문화』와 『결혼 이민자와 함께하는 한국어』를 중심으로 위 교재 내에 명사구 보문절이 충실히 반영되어 있는지를 살펴보고, 실제 결혼 이민자들의 텍스트를 분석하여 그들의 명사구 보문절 사용 양상을 파악하였다. 또한 명사구 보문절의 새로운 제시 방안을 모색하였다. 명사구 보문절 중에서도 완형보문을 중심으로 논의를 전개하였는데, 이는 종결어미에 ‘-는’이 붙는 완형보문의 형태가 비종결어미에 ‘-(으)ㄴ’, ‘-는’, ‘-(으)ㄹ’, ‘-던’이 붙는 불구 보문의 형태보다 단순하며, 명사구 보문절 전체를 대상으로 삼기에는 그 범위가 넓기 때문이다. 한국어교육에서 교육 내용의 기준이나 배열에 있어 난이도는 사용 빈도와 더불어 사용 범위, 가용성, 친숙도 등보다 기본적으로 가장 먼저 채택되어지고 있으며, 명사구 보문절은 결혼 이민자의 교재에서 중급 2교재로부터 시작되기 때문에 시작점부터 점차 난이도를 높여 나가는 것이 좋을 것으로 보인다.

Crosslinguistic Variation in Sign Language Syntax

This review introduces and compares syntactic structures in a variety of sign languages. I first examine ways in which sign languages function like spoken languages, and ways in which they differ. I then briefly discuss what sign languages have in common in the syntactic realm; the rest of the article focuses on how they can differ. Because the level of the simple sentence has been documented extensively, this review emphasizes complex sentences, such as sentential complementation, relative clauses, adverbial clauses, embedded questions, and conditionals.

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.

A Corpus Investigation of Syntactic Embedding in Pirahã.

The Pirahã language has been at the center of recent debates in linguistics, in large part because it is claimed not to exhibit recursion, a purported universal of human language. Here, we present an analysis of a novel corpus of natural Pirahã speech that was originally collected by Dan Everett and Steve Sheldon. We make the corpus freely available for further research. In the corpus, Pirahã sentences have been shallowly parsed and given morpheme-aligned English translations. We use the corpus to investigate the formal complexity of Pirahã syntax by searching for evidence of syntactic embedding. In particular, we search for sentences which could be analyzed as containing center-embedding, sentential complements, adverbials, complementizers, embedded possessors, conjunction or disjunction. We do not find unambiguous evidence for recursive embedding of sentences or noun phrases in the corpus. We find that the corpus is plausibly consistent with an analysis of Pirahã as a regular language, although this is not the only plausible analysis.

A Study on Teaching Sentential Complement Focusing on the Connection between ‘-Dago’ Complement and ‘-Daneun’ Complement in Korean Language Education —Based on the Analysis of Errors in Sentential Complements Written by Chinese Undergraduate Students—

A Study on Teaching Sentential Complement Focusing on the Connection between ‘-Dago’ Complement and ‘-Daneun’ Complement in Korean Language Education —Based on the Analysis of Errors in Sentential Complements Written by Chinese Undergraduate Students—

Negation and Modality

This paper deals with the question of negation and mood in Modern Greek verb complementation where there is a choice between an indicative and a subjunctive complement, in particular those with the verb pistévo (πιστεύω) ‘think, believe’, but also nomízo (νομίζω) ‘think, believe’, kséro (ξέρω) ‘know’, thimáme (θυμάμαι) ‘remember’, vlépo (βλέπω) ‘see’, akúo (ακούω) ‘hear’, and vrísko (βρίσκω) ‘find’. It presents the result of an empirical study of pistévo, based on an investigation undertaken in the Hellenic National Corpus (HNC) of sentential complements following pistévo. The factor of negation in the matrix is investigated along with two other factors, hypothesized to be of interest, namely first person singular of the present tense in the matrix and second person (singular and plural) in the complement. As was expected, neither any of the three factors individually or any combination of the three can be considered decisive for the choice of mood. What seems to be certain, however, is that the combination of all three constitutes a context that favours the subjunctive and in one case actually seems to exclude an indicative complement, namely when the illocutionary force of the utterance is that of a question, more or less rhetorically eliciting feedback. It thus does not seem to be the presence of the negation, nor any other syntactic factor, that actually triggers the subjunctive with this verb in some contexts, but a particular speech situation (where the three investigated factors are typically present). That is, the prerequisite is not syntactic, but pragmatic.

Comprehension priming as rational expectation for repetition: Evidence from syntactic processing

Why do comprehenders process repeated stimuli more rapidly than novel stimuli? We consider an adaptive explanation for why such facilitation may be beneficial: priming is a consequence of expectation for repetition due to rational adaptation to the environment. If occurrences of a stimulus cluster in time, given one occurrence it is rational to expect a second occurrence closely following. Leveraging such knowledge may be particularly useful in online processing of language, where pervasive clustering may help comprehenders negotiate the considerable challenge of continual expectation update at multiple levels of linguistic structure and environmental variability. We test this account in the domain of structural priming in syntax, making use of the sentential complement–direct object (SC–DO) ambiguity. We first show that sentences containing SC continuations cluster in natural language, motivating an expectation for repetition of this structure. Second, we show that comprehenders are indeed sensitive to the syntactic clustering properties of their current environment. In a series of between-groups self-paced reading studies, we find that participants who are exposed to clusters of SC sentences subsequently process repetitions of SC structure more rapidly than participants who are exposed to the same number of SCs spaced in time, and attribute the difference to the learned degree of expectation for repetition. We model this behavior through Bayesian belief update, showing that (the optimal degree of) sensitivity to clustering properties of syntactic structures is indeed learnable through experience. Comprehension priming effects are thus consistent with rational expectation for repetition based on adaptation to the linguistic environment.

The language cognition interface in ASD: Complement sentences and false belief reasoning

Theory of Mind (ToM) deficits are often attested in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Previous work on ASD has identified links between ToM abilities and knowledge of sentential complements, with the hypothesis that this component of language provides a tool for individuals with ASD to figure out solutions to ToM tasks. However studies on ASD are yet to show if the impact of complementation on ToM performance carries over to instances where ToM is assessed nonverbally. As such, the links identified between ToM tasks and complementation tasks may stem from linguistic difficulties that impact scores across the measures used, rather than from the role played by sentential complements in mental representation. This study is the first to evaluate associations between complements and nonverbal ToM in children with ASD compared to typically developing children of similar nonverbal intellectual ability and general language level. Correlations controlling for nonverbal abilities were found between complements and non-verbal ToM success in the ASD group only. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that competence with complement sentences of verbs of communication explained 30% of the variance in their performance at non-verbal ToM. These findings provide new evidence in favour of the view that sentential complements play a role in ToM reasoning in ASD.

Aspects of the acquisition of object control and ECM-Type verbs in European Portuguese

ABSTRACTWe investigate the acquisition of sentential complementation under causative, perception, and object control verbs in European Portuguese, a language rich in complement types, including the typologically marked inflected infinitives. We tested 58 children between 3 and 5 years of age and 24 adults on a sentence completion task. The results support two main hypotheses concerning children’s initial biases in representing complement structure. The first pertains to argument structure—a verb selects only one internal (propositional) argument (Single Argument Selection Hypothesis), the other to syntactic structure—propositional complements are complete functional complements (Complete Functional Complement Hypothesis). These initial biases lead children to avoid raising-to-object and object control structures, in favor of finite complements and inflected infinitive complements, the latter appearing in both target and nontarget contexts.

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.

Exploring links between language and cognition in autism spectrum disorders: Complement sentences, false belief, and executive functioning

A growing body of work indicates a close relation between complement clause sentences and Theory of Mind (ToM) in children with autism (e.g., Tager-Flusberg, & Joseph (2005). In Astington, & Baird (Eds.), Why language matters for theory of mind (pp. 298–318). New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press, Lind, & Bowler (2009). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(6), 929). However, this link is based primarily on success at a specific complement clause task and a verbal false-belief (FB) task. One cannot exclude that the link found between these tasks may be a by-product of their both presupposing similar levels of language skills. It is also an open question if the role of complementation in ToM success is a privileged one as compared to that of other abilities which have been claimed to be an important factor for ToM understanding in autism, namely executive functioning (EF) (Pellicano (2007). Developmental Psychology 43, 974). Indeed the role played by complementation may be conceived of as an indirect one, mediated by some more general cognitive function related to EF. This study is the first to examine the relation between theory of mind assessed both verbally and non-verbally and various types of complement clause sentences as well as executive functions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our participants included 17 children and adolescents with ASD (aged 6 to 16) and a younger TD control group matched on non-verbal IQ (aged 4 to 9 years). Three tasks assessing complements of verbs of cognition, verbs of communication and verbs of perception were conducted. ToM tasks involved a verbal ToM task (Sally-Anne, Baron-Cohen et al. (1985). Cognition, 21(1), 37) as well as a non-verbal one (Colle et al. (2007). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(4), 716). Indexes of executive functions were collected via a computerized version of the Dimensional Change Card-Sorting task (Frye et al., 1995). Standardized measures of vocabulary, morphosyntax and non-verbal IQ were also administered. Results show similar performance by children with ASD and TD controls for the understanding of complement sentences, for non-verbal ToM and for executive functions. However, children with ASD were significantly impaired for false belief when this was measured verbally. For both ASD and TD, correlations controlling for IQ were found between the verbal FB task and complement sentences of verbs of communication and cognition, but not with verbs of perception. EF indexes did not significantly correlate with either of the ToM tasks, nor did any of the general language scores. These findings provide support for the view that knowledge of certain specific types of complement clause may serve as a privileged means of ‘hacking out’ solutions to verbal false belief tasks for individuals on the autistic spectrum. More specifically, complements with a truth-value that is independent of that of the matrix clause (i.e. those occurring with verbs of cognition and of communication, but not of perception) may describe a false event while the whole sentence remains true, making these linguistic structures particularly well suited for representing the minds of others (de Villiers, 2007).Learning outcomes: Readers will be able to (1) describe and evaluate the hypothesis that complement sentences play a privileged role in false belief task success in autism; (2) describe performance on complement sentences, executive functioning and false belief tasks by children with autism as compared to IQ-matched peers; (3) explain which types of complements specifically relate to false belief task performance and why; and (4) understand that differences in performance by children with autism at different types of false-belief tasks may be related to the nature of the task conducted and the underlying mechanisms involved.

Complement sentences - complementizers of causative-manipulative verbs

This paper presents the key structural and semantic features of the complement sentences that have the primary function of direct or indirect objects of one type of causative verbs - causative-manipulative verbs. Since the syntactic literature frequently discusses the structural characteristics of the complement sentences, the main objective of this article is focused on the semantic diversity of this type of sentences. The goal of the article is to determine the dependence of the realized meaning of a sentence on the semantic type of the main verb. Although the conjunction da is a typical subordinator of these sentences, a series of communicative verbs allows the use of complement sentences with interrogative adverbs and pronouns in the function of conjunctions.

Electrophysiology of Sentence Processing in Aphasia: Prosodic Cues and Thematic Fit

Electrophysiology of Sentence Processing in Aphasia: Prosodic Cues and Thematic Fit

Argument structure and the representation of abstract semantics.

According to the dual coding theory, differences in the ease of retrieval between concrete and abstract words are related to the exclusive dependence of abstract semantics on linguistic information. Argument structure can be considered a measure of the complexity of the linguistic contexts that accompany a verb. If the retrieval of abstract verbs relies more on the linguistic codes they are associated to, we could expect a larger effect of argument structure for the processing of abstract verbs. In this study, sets of length- and frequency-matched verbs including 40 intransitive verbs, 40 transitive verbs taking simple complements, and 40 transitive verbs taking sentential complements were presented in separate lexical and grammatical decision tasks. Half of the verbs were concrete and half were abstract. Similar results were obtained in the two tasks, with significant effects of imageability and transitivity. However, the interaction between these two variables was not significant. These results conflict with hypotheses assuming a stronger reliance of abstract semantics on linguistic codes. In contrast, our data are in line with theories that link the ease of retrieval with availability and robustness of semantic information.

Children’s understanding of pretend emotions: The role of the vocabulary and the syntax of complementation with cognitive and communicative verbs

Ce travail vise à étudier le rôle du vocabulaire et de la syntaxe de la complémentation sur un aspect spécifique de la théorie de l’esprit : la capacité des enfants à faire la distinction entre les émotions vraies et les émotions feintes. Les tâches suivantes ont été administrées individuellement à 70 enfants (37 âgés de quatre ans et 33 âgés de six ans): une tâche de propositions subordonnées complétives, une tâche de compréhension d’actions feintes, deux tâches de compréhension d’émotions feintes (les siennes et celles des autres), et un test de vocabulaire réceptif. Les résultats ont montré des corrélations significatives entre la capacité à comprendre les émotions feintes et les performances aux épreuves de vocabulaire et de syntaxe de complémentation, mais seulement à l’âge de quatre ans. Bien que la compréhension des émotions feintes soit plus liée à la connaissance de la syntaxe de la complémentation qu’au vocabulaire, ce type de connaissance n’est pas une condition nécessaire ou suffisante pour comprendre les émotions feintes. Les résultats sont discutés à la lumière de l’importance des liens entre la langue et la compréhension des émotions.