Complementizer Deletion in European Spanish: A comparison between XVI-XVII century Spanish and current-day Spanish

Abstract

This study investigates the conditions that determine the omission of the complementizer ‘que’ (that) in simple complement clauses by comparing two stages of the peninsular Spanish language: the period between the 16th and 17th century, when this phenomenon became productive, and the 21st century. Specifically, I examine authentic data samples taken from four different corpora, in order to analyse the syntax associated with complementizerless clauses and the properties of the C-layer. I show that the omission of ‘que’ in current-day Spanish systematically correlates with some factors, such as the particular type of inflection of the embedded verb and the absence of overt lexical or pronominal subject in pre-verbal embedded position. The hypothesis I propose is that Complementizer Deletion (CD) in Spanish depends on the absence of the speaker’s temporal location in the syntax. One of the main arguments supporting my hypothesis comes from the analysis of Recomplementation phenomenon as an utterance-oriented structure (González i Planas 2014). I show, following Giorgi (2010), that there is evidence for claiming that there exist two complementizers ‘que’ having different properties and that the phenomenon of CD can be explained in these terms. This approach can also apply to classical Spanish, notwithstanding the differences concerning the temporal interpretations of the embedded event and the subject distributions that the syntax of complementizerless clauses presents at this stage of the language.