ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 to Chapter 7 will discuss constructions in which a verb select a verbal projection, that is, a clause or some smaller (extended) °projection of some other verb. The present chapter provides the necessary background for these chapters by providing a review of a number of issues in this domain. In a sense, Chapter 5 can be seen as a continuation of the discussion in Chapter 2 on °argument structure: it discusses cases in which main verbs select a verbal projection, that is, a finite or infinitival argument clause. The reason why we did not discuss this type of °complementation in Chapter 2 is that in essence it does not alter the syntactic verb classification that was developed there: for example, many verbs taking an internal °argument have the option of choosing between a nominal and a clausal complement. This is illustrated in (1) for the transitive verb zien ‘to see’ and the ditransitive verb vertellen ‘to tell’. (1) a. Jan zag het schilderij. Jan saw the painting a′. Jan zag [dat het regende]. Jan saw that it rained b. Peter vertelde Marie een leuk verhaal. Peter told Marie a nice story b′. Peter vertelde Marie [dat Jan ziek was]. Peter told Marie that Jan ill was ‘Peter told Marie that Jan was ill.’ If a specific verb resists a nominal object, pronominalization of the clausal complement shows that the verb in question is in principle able to take a nominal complement and to assign case to it. The acceptability of pronominalization in (2b), for instance, shows that the verb betogen ‘to argue’ is simply a transitive verb and that the infelicitousness of the use of the nominal object die stelling ‘that thesis’ is a matter of semantics, not syntax; complements of verbs like betogen must simply have propositional content. This is confirmed by the fact illustrated in (2c) that there are acceptable cases of nominal complementation with noun phrases like het tegendeel ‘the opposite’, which are propositional in nature. (2) a. Jan betoogt [dat dit boek een mislukking is]. Jan argues that this book a failure is ‘Jan argues that this book is a failure.’ b. Jan betoogt dat/$die stelling. Jan argues that/that thesis c. Els zegt [dat dit boek een meesterwerk is] maar Jan betoogt het tegendeel. Els says that this book a masterpiece is but Jan argues the opposite ‘Els says that this book is a masterpiece but Jan argues the opposite.’ The examples in (3) show that clausal complements of PO-verbs can normally also be pronominalized or be replaced by a noun phrase. This illustrates again that clausal complements do not essentially affect the syntactic classification of verbs, and that the omission of clausal complements from our discussion of argument structure in Chapter 2 is therefore relatively innocuous. (3) a. Jan twijfelt (erover) [of hij de juiste beslissing genomen heeft]. Jan doubts about.it whether he the right decision taken has ‘Jan isn’t sure (about it) whether he has taken the right decision.’ b. Jan twijfelt daarover/over zijn beslissing. Jan doubts about.it/about his decision ‘Jan isn’t sure about that/about his decision.’ The reason for devoting a separate discussion to clausal/verbal arguments is that these arguments exhibit various special properties and introduce a number of complicating factors that have been investigated extensively in the literature. A discussion of these special properties and complicating factors would seriously interfere with the main line of argumentation in Chapter 2: it is better to discuss these properties in their own right. The present chapter will point at some of the topics that need special attention.
