When hypotaxis looks like parataxis: embedding and complementizer agreement in Teiwa

Abstract

Teiwa, an Alor-Pantar language of the Trans-New Guinea family, has been characterized as expressing speech reports not with complementation, but with combinations of two clauses juxtaposed under a single intonation contour with no morphological indication for integration (Klamer 2010: A Grammar of Teiwa, Mouton de Gruyter). We argue, contra Klamer, that speech and attitude reports in Teiwa should be analyzed as embedding (or hypotaxis). We present evidence from intonation, syntax and semantics that speech reports are expressed by a single, monosentential structure in Teiwa with embedding of the speech report. Our results also show that purely morphological diagnostics can be unreliable for distinguishing between a monosentential or bisentential structure of speech reports. We describe several formal experiments from our fieldwork that provide more reliable tests. Our result has implications for both the ongoing theoretical discussions of clausal complementation, complementizer agreement, grammaticalization of complementizers and the historical evolution of complementation.