Complementizer deletion

This chapter reviews the phenomenology of complementizer‐deletion and the approaches that have emerged in successive phases of the generative framework, focusing mainly on English, and distinguishing two subtypes: (i) optional C‐deletion in embedded declarative clauses, and (ii) “Doubly Filled Comp” (DFC) effects in clauses hosting a wh‐phrase in CP, where the appearance or omission of the local complementizer is subject to diachronic and cross‐linguistic variation. Not included here are “Complementizer‐trace effects.” The approaches to this phenomenology can be divided into three major phases. In the GB phase, DFC effects were analyzed by means of a surface filter, while optional C‐deletion was reduced to the Empty Category Principle: a complementizer can be optionally deleted only if it is properly governed by a verbal head. In the early 1990a, a “truncation” account emerged, based on the observation that C‐less clauses disallow Topicalization and Negative preposing in them. It was argued that C‐less clauses are bare IPs; later on, the emergence of the split CP structure allowed for a less radical truncation analysis, as well as for a reconsideration of DFC effects (ii). Starting from the late 1990s, the interface between syntax and the external systems came into focus. Investigation of C‐deletion in Italian subjunctive clauses concentrated on the syntax–semantics interface, while an analysis of optional C‐deletion (i) was proposed on the basis of the syntax–prosody interface. Prosodic evidence is here provided, based on elicited data. Finally, a potential parallelism is discussed between optional C‐deletion (i) and the phenomenology of “embedded root phenomena.”