It Fryske bynwurdsysteem: in enklityske ûnderskikker en in Doubly-Filled Comp

Abstract

In this article I propose a comprehensive analysis of the Modern West Frisian complementizer system. Like other Germanic languages West Frisian has a dubitative/hypothetical finite complementizer and a neutral finite complementizer. Dubitative/hypothetical oft is analyzed as an amal-gamate of the disjunctive conjuction of and the neutral finite complementizer. The latter has three lexical manifestations in West Frisian: the full form dat, an expletive form oft and the enclitical form ’t. I discuss the distribution of these complementizer forms (dubitative/hypothetical oft, dat, expletive oft and ’t) in the main sentence types in West Frisian and the implications this has for syntactic structure. In comparison to the neighbouring Germanic languages the West Frisian complementizer system is characterized by the combination of two properties: (i) West Frisian possesses a clitical complementizer ’t next to the full form dat, and (ii) West Frisian allows a Doubly-Filled Comp (interpreted here as a result of the obligation to lexicalize the finiteness feature in the complementizer position).