Common Contracts

Title: Lubukusu complementizer agreement as a logophoric relation

November 27th, 2010

• Filed
  November 27th, 2010

This paper introduces a new complementizer agreement relation to the theoretical literature, in which a declarative- embedding complementizer agrees with the subject in its selecting clause in Lubukusu, a Bantu language of Kenya. The agreement relation is extensively documented in a wide variety of syntactic contexts, establishing the empirical generalization that the complementizer agrees with its most local superordinate subject. The claim is then set forth that the complementizer agreement relation is essentially a logophoric phenomena, where a null logophor operator within the embedded CP triggers the complementizer agreement relation. The paper proposes that this logophoric operator is a subject-oriented anaphor, explaining the subject-orientation of complementizer agreement, and that logophoric operators cross-linguistically vary in their syntactic nature, explaining cross-linguistic differences in logophoric phenomena. It is shown that the agreeing complementizer occurs with all