Complementizers at the Syntax-Phonology Interface

This paper investigates the distribution of complementizers in English. An (2007) proposes a generalization that a null complementizer must be banned at the edge of an intonational phrase. Though this generalization looks elegant at first sight, it faces the serious problem of why a null complementizer can be contained in a root clause. The purpose of this paper is to solve this problem by proposing a cyclic application of a prosodic constraint (Strong Start (Harizanov (2014)), which prohibits a prosodically deficient element from occupying the left edge of a maximal projection of an intonational phrase) to every intonational phrase, which is then upgraded to utterance only if the constraint is satisfied. This system naturally accounts for the (un-)availability of both overt/covert complementizers.