On the nominal nature of propositional arguments

The grammatical category of embedded clauses has been a central topic in theoretical syntax for over 50 years. The discussion specifically revolves around the question of whether some or perhaps all embedded clauses should be treated as nominal phrases, either because they have a (silent) nominal head or because the clause introducer itself can be considered nominal. The contributions of this special issue revisit this question and explore it from various syntactic and semantic perspectives in light of newer theoretical approaches. The range of languages examined or used argumentatively for analytical purposes includes not only German – including dialectal varieties such as Bavarian and Alemannic – but also English, Dutch, Ancient and Modern Greek, Jula, Swedish, Basque, and a number of other genetically and typologically diverse languages. Contents: – Katrin Axel-Tober, Lutz Gunkel, Jutta M. Hartmann & Anke Holler: Introduction Part I: Complementation as Relativization – Carlos de Cuba: Relativ nouny? – Gisela Zifonun: Are complement clauses nominal? Positions in grammatical writing Part II: Complement clauses and nominal structure – Richard Faure: (H)óti clauses from DP to NPhood. The life of a Greek nouny clause – Kalle Müller: On noun-related complementizer clauses – Alassane Kiemtoré: A syntactic approach to clause complementation in Jula Part III: Semantic aspects – Vesela Simeonova: Definitive factive – Jürgen Pafel: (Argument) clauses and definite descriptions – Patrick Brandt: The true semantic value is propositional: German particle verbs and change of state Part IV: Aspects based on dependent verb-two – Andreas Blümel & Nobu Goto: Rethinking the syntax of correlates and propositional arguments – Frank Sode: On the conditional nature of V2 clauses in German wish reports.