The Romance k- complementizers

In Germanic and Romance, finite complementizers are clearly nominal, belonging to argumental series such as demonstratives or wh- elements respectively. Therefore in previous work (Manzini and Savoia 2003, 2005, to appear a) we propose that the complementizer is not a functional category of the embedded verb, but rather an independent nominal head, which satisfies an argument slot of the matrix verb and which takes the embedded sentence as its complement, as briefly summarized in section 1. The aim of the present article is to investigate the range of variation that attaches to the lexicalization of complementizers in Romance varieties. We argue that only the treatment of the complementizer sketched above allows for a transparent account of the observed variation (sections 2-3). First, the overlapping of Romance complementizers with the wh-system follows precise patterns, which exclude the possibility that homophony is simply at stake. Second, an account of the variation internal to the complementizer system requires the complementizer to be interpreted as introducing a propositional variable – which is natural only if it is a nominal head. Finally, in section 4, we consider the finiteness restriction that complementizers are subject to, arguing that they do not select for embedded temporal/modal properties (this being a potential argument in favour of their status as a functional projection of the verb); rather they select for the properties of the embedded EPP argument – hence of the proposition as a whole.