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Concept
Complementizer
Summary
In linguistics (especially generative grammar), a complementizer or complementiser (glossing abbreviation: ) is a (part of speech) that includes those words that can be used to turn a clause into the subject or object of a sentence. For example, the word that may be called a complementizer in English sentences like Mary believes that it is raining. The concept of complementizers is specific to certain modern grammatical theories. In traditional grammar, such words are normally considered conjunctions. The standard abbreviation for complementizer is C.
The complementizer is often held to be the syntactic head of a full clause, which is therefore often represented by the abbreviation CP (for complementizer phrase). Evidence of the complementizer functioning as the head of its clause includes that it is commonly the last element in a clause in head-final languages like Korean or Japanese in which other heads follow their complements, but it appears at the start of a clause in head-initial languages such as English in which heads normally precede their complements. The trees below illustrate the phrase "Taro said that he married Hanako" in Japanese and English; syntactic heads are marked in red and demonstrate that C falls in head-final position in Japanese, and in head-initial position in English.
It is common for the complementizers of a language to develop historically from other syntactic categories, a process known as grammaticalization.
Across world languages, pronouns and determiners are especially commonly used as complementizers (e.g., English that).
I read in the paper that it's going to be cold today.
Another frequent source of complementizers is the class of interrogative words. It is especially common for a form that otherwise means what to be borrowed as a complementizer, but other interrogative words are often used as well, as in the following colloquial English example in which unstressed how is roughly equivalent to that.
I read in the paper how it's going to be cold today.
Official source
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