On the Status of the Complementizer WAA6 in Cantonese

Abstract

Complementizers are generally known as function words that introduce a clausal complement, like that in English, for instance (Radford 1997). In many languages, complementizers are re-analyzed from verba dicendi, or verbs of ‘saying’ (Lord 1976; Frajzyngier 1991; Hopper and Traugott 1993; Lord 1993). This paper argues for the existence of a complementizer re-analyzed from a verb of ‘saying’ in Cantonese by providing a synchronic analysis for waa6. Waa6 has often been assumed to be a lexical verb in serial verb construction because of its following a ‘saying’ predicate or a cognitive predicate. However, this paper argues that waa6 is not always a verb, postulating that waa6 may have different meanings and subcategorizations in different situations, including waa61 meaning ‘say’ [__ (PP) CP] or {__PP NP}, the transitive verb waa62 meaning ‘blame/condemn’ [__NP CP], and the complementizer waa63 selecting a clause [__ IP]. This proposal is supported by different tests, such as aspect marking and argument selection, confirming that the complementizer waa63 formally exhibits different properties from that of the verbs waa61 and waa62.