Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale

Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale
Journal issue | 50 | 2016
Research Article | On Noun Clausal ‘Complements’ and their Non-unitary Nature

On Noun Clausal ‘Complements’ and their Non-unitary Nature

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the status of clausal ‘complements’ of Ns, which have recently been analysed by various authors as restrictive relative clauses. First we argue that they do not constitute a unitary phenomenon. Two types should be distinguished: clausal “complements” that can be predicated of the noun across a copula (with nouns like ‘claim’, ‘news’, ‘idea’, etc.) and those that cannot (with transitive nouns like ‘proof’ and with ‘unaccusative’ nouns like ‘possibility’). While we argue that both types are not genuine complements of the noun, we address some apparent difficulties for an ordinary restrictive relative clause analysis. Using data from English, Bulgarian and Italian we suggest that noun clausal “complements” of the first type are best analyzed as the predicate of a non-restrictive reduced relative clause, ultimately derived from an inverse (specificational) copular structure where the “complement” clause that expresses the content of the N occupies the subject position and the Noun the predicate position ([[CP That he is a spy] Pred° [DP the claim]]). Concerning noun clausal “complements” of the second type we tentatively assume that they involve the relativization of a propositional variable, as suggested by a number of authors.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: April 12, 2016 | Accepted: July 11, 2016 | Published Sept. 30, 2016 | Language: it

Keywords Noun complements • Unaccusative nouns • Reduced relative clauses • Inverse predication

Copyright © 2016 Guglielmo Cinque, Iliyana Krapova. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2499-1562/AnnOc-50-16-4


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