Agreeing complementizers may just be moody

Abstract

This study investigates two discourse-related particles, ya and şo, in Laz, an endangered South Caucasian language. We argue that both ya and şo are indexical shift complementizers which can occur without an overt embedding verb, suggesting root complementizer behavior. However, when they appear embedded, the mood specification of the embedding verb determines which of the two will surface, suggestive of complementizer agreement in mood features. We show that, while ya and şo need to be semantically distinct in their root occurrences, there are compositionality challenges against the null hypothesis that ya and şo keep their meanings when embedded. As an alternative to a formal agreement account, we propose to semantically relate the embedded and root occurrences of these complementizers.