Complement clauses

[Helge Lodrup]

Dear all

We are interested in the syntactic behavior of complement clauses.
Languages treat complement clauses with two-place verbs in different ways;
some languages treat them like objects (for example Icelandic), while
others treat them like non-objects (for example Japanese). Especially
interesting is the fact that there are languages that treat some complement
clauses like objects and others like non-objects, depending upon the
governing verb. This is shown by object agreement, etc. An example of this
kind of language is Slave (Athapaskan, described in Keren Rice's grammar).

We would appreciate more information on the syntactic behavior of
complement clauses in the world's languages. We are especially interested
in languages of the Slave type, but everything will be appreciated.

Best,

Mary Dalrymple, dalrymple at parc.xerox.com
Helge Lodrup, hlodrup at leland.stanford.edu