Agreeing complementizers
Distribution
Cross-linguistically, complementizers are rarely sensitive to the featural properties of clause-level arguments; however, argument indexation on complementizers is prevalent in certain language groups and is particularly well attested in Bantu (e.g. Rizzi 1990; Kawasha 2007; Baker 2008; Diercks 2010, 2013), Mande (e.g. Idiatov 2010) and West Germanic (e.g. Haegeman 1992; Kathol 2001; van Koppen 2017) languages. Complementizer agreement has been observed in several other language families in Africa (Güldemann 2008) and is also a property of the Celtic language Welsh (Borsley 2009) and the Slavic language Polish (Citko 2018).
Map 3.1 shows the distribution of languages with complementizer agreement within a convenience sample of 73 languages used in Bond et al. (2022). The sample was constructed for the purpose of exploring dependencies between target types in languages exhibiting evidence for at least one non-verbal agreement target belonging to the categories adverb, adposition, complementizer, noun or pronoun.
Map 3.1 Languages with complementizer agreement within a convenience sample of 73 languages exhibiting evidence for at least one non-verbal agreement target belonging to the categories adverb, adposition, complementizer, noun or pronoun.
Data
| Variety | Genus | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Coahuilteco |  Coahuilteco | Troike 1981; Troike 1996; Branan 2019 |
| Teiwa |  Alor-Pantar | Klamer 2010; Sauerland, Hollebrandse & Kratochvíl 2020 |
| Bavarian |  Germanic | Weise 1907; Weiß 2005; Fuẞ 2014 |
| West Flemish | Germanic | Haegeman 2000 |
| West Frisian | Germanic | van der Meer 1991; Zwart 1993 |
| Welsh |  Celtic | Borsley 2009 |
| Kpelle |  Mande | Idiatov 2010; Konoshenko 2013; Konoshenko 2015 |
| Samatiguila Jula | Mande | Braconnier 1987; Idiatov 2010; Konoshenko 2013 |
| Tura | Mande | Bearth 1971; Idiatov 2010; Konoshenko 2013 |
| Ripano |  Romance | Paciaroni & Loporcaro 2018; Lopocaro et al. 2020; Paciaroni 2023; D'Alessandro 2020 |
| Bukusu |  Bantoid | Diercks 2010; Carstens & Diercks 2013 |
| Chokwe | Bantoid | Martins 1990; Kawasha 2007; Kawasha 2008 |
| Ejagham | Bantoid | Watters 1981; Güldemann 2008 |
| Ikalanga | Bantoid | Letsholo 2002; Letsholo & Safir 2019 |
| Limbum | Bantoid | Fransen 1995 |
| Luchazi | Bantoid | Fleisch 2000; Kawasha 2007 |
| Lunda | Bantoid | Kawasha 2003; Kawasha 2007 |
| Luvale | Bantoid | Horton 1949; Kawasha 2007 |
| Nande | Bantoid | Baker 2008 |
| Finnish |  Finnic | Lehman 1982; Karlsson 2018 |
| Ibibio |  Delta Cross | Kauffman 1968; Torrence 2016 |
| Nanti |  Arawakan | Michael 2008; Michael 2012 |
| Polish |  Slavic | Citko 2018; Swan 2002 |
| Au |  Nuclear Torricelli | Scorza 1985 |
| Gujarati |  Indo-Aryan | Hook & Joshi 1991; Cardona & Suthar 2003; Bhatt 2005 |
References
Baker, Mark. 2008. The syntax of agreement and concord. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bond, Oliver, Steven Kaye & Marina Chumakina. 2022. A typology of agreement targets. Paper given at the 55th Societas Linguistica Europaea meeting (SLE 55), University of Bucharest, August 26, 2022.
Borsley, Robert D. 2009. ‘On the superficiality of Welsh agreement’, Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 27/2: 225–65.
Citko, Barbara. 2018. Complementizer agreement with coordinated subjects in Polish. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3(1): 124. 1–25, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.588
Diercks, Michael. 2010. Agreement with subjects in Lubukusu. PhD dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Diercks, Michael. 2013. ‘Indirect agree in Lubukusu complementiser agreement’, Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 31/2: 357–407.
Güldemann, Tom. 2008. Quotative indexes in African languages. A synchronic and diachronic survey. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Haegeman, Liliane. 1992. Theory and description in generative syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Idiatov, Dmitry. 2010. ‘Person–number agreement on clause linking markers in Mande’, Studies in Language, 34.4: 832–868. doi 10.1075/sl.34.4.03idi
Kathol, Andreas. 2001. ‘Syntactic categories and positional shape alternations’, Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 3/2: 59–96.
Kawasha, Boniface. 2007. ‘Subject-agreeing complementizers and their functions in Chokwe, Luchazi, Lunda, and Luvale’, in Doris L. Payne & Jaime Peña (eds), Selected proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 180–90.
van Koppen, Marjo. 2017. ‘Complementizer agreement’, in Martin Everaert & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds), The Wiley Blackwell companion to syntax (2nd ed.). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 923–62. doi: 10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom061
Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.