Clausal embedding in Washo: Complementation vs. modification

This paper concerns clausal embedding in Washo (also spelled Washoe, Wáˑšiw), a highly endangered Hokan/isolate language spoken around Lake Tahoe in the United States. We argue that Washo offers evidence that both complementation and modification are available strategies for subordination, and in doing so contribute more generally to the ongoing debate about how clauses are embedded by attitude verbs. We observe that the embedding strategies of certain predicates in Washo follow from independent properties of clause types in the language. On the one hand, clauses embedded by presuppositional verbs come in the form of clausal nominalizations, which are selected as thematic internal arguments. The DP layer in these complements is responsible for encoding familiarity in a general sense (along the lines of Kastner 2015) both in these complement clauses as well as in other constructions in the language. On the other hand, clauses embedded by non-presuppositional verbs are not selected at all; they are instead adjunct modifiers, which follows from the fact that the attitude verbs they modify are always intransitive. This aspect of the analysis lends support to the property-analysis of ‘that’-clauses (e.g., Kratzer 2006; Moulton 2009; Elliott 2016), but only in certain instances of embedding. We argue that the Washo facts show that selection still plays a role for some verbs, contra theories that do away with it altogether (Elliott 2016), but selection cannot explain everything either, as non-presuppositional verbs are intransitive and do not select at all.