A semantic constraint on optional that in English: the role of factivity

Gabriela Bîlbîie & Israel de la Fuente

(University of Bucharest & University of Lille)

Keywords: complementizer drop, embedding, factivity, acceptability judgment task, English

The present study constitutes an experimental investigation into the semantic factor of
factivity in relation to the complementizer omission in English.
The complementizer omission in English has been extensively studied from different
perspectives and by taking into account various linguistic and non-linguistic factors, as
summarized by Jaeger (2006, 2010): dependency length and position of Complement Clause
(CC), overt production difficulty at CC onset, lexical retrieval at CC onset, lexical retrieval
before CC onset, ambiguity avoidance at CC onset, grammaticalization, etc. In addition to the
previously identified factors, Jaeger (2010) observes a significant effect of information
density, i.e. the lower the information density of the embedded clause onset, the more likely
the omission of the complementizer. However, to our knowledge, no previous work
considered the semantic class of the embedding predicate, with the exception of Dor (2005),
who takes into account the lexical semantics of the embedding predicates but not factivity.
In recent experimental work, we tested the role of verb semantics in embedded gapping
and we observed that factivity has indeed an effect on the behaviour of embedded gapping.
Despite the observed cross-linguistic variation (English and French vs. Spanish and Romanian
vs. Persian), a general semantic constraint is at work: non-factive verbs (e.g. think, believe,
suspect, imagine) embed more easily than factive ones, and semi-factives (knowledge verbs,
e.g. realize, observe, see, know) embed more easily than true factives (emotion verbs, e.g.
regret, be surprised, be bothered, like), independently of ellipsis (Kiparsky & Kiparsky 1970,
Karttunen 1971). On the basis of our previous experimental results, we test at present the
interaction between factivity and complementizer omission in English, outside coordination
and ellipsis contexts. Our hypothesis is that true (emotion) factive predicates are less likely to
cooccur with complementizer omission than non-factive ones, and that semi-factive
(knowledge) predicates are less resistant to complementizer drop than true factives.
We ran an acceptability judgment task (20 experimental items, 24 distractors and 16
ungrammatical controls) by using a 2x2 design with two factors (FACTIVITY and
COMPLEMENTIZER), giving rise to 4 conditions, cf. (1). Within the [+FACT] conditions, half of
the predicates used were true factive and half were semi-factive. The rating (Likert) scale was
1-7. We tested 51 participants from the USA (on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk).

(1) a. [+COMP, +FACT] I regret that Albert visited very strange places during his trip.
b. [+COMP, –FACT] I suspect that Albert visited very strange places during his trip.
c. [–COMP, +FACT] I regret Albert visited very strange places during his trip.
d. [–COMP, –FACT] I suspect Albert visited very strange places during his trip.

Our results show no differences in judgments with non-factive verbs with or without a
complementizer, unlike with factive verbs where the absence of the complementizer results in
 significantly lower acceptability judgments than when the complementizer is present (cf.
Figures 1 and 2). Linear mixed models reveal significant main effects of Complementizer and
Factivity (both at p<.001) and a significant Complementizer*Factivity interaction (p<.001).
Therefore, true factives and semi-factives do not give rise to exactly the same acceptability
judgments: bare clauses (without that) embedded under a semi-factive verb are more
acceptable than those embedded under a true factive verb.
In order to fully account for the complementizer omission phenomenon in English, we
need thus a multifactorial analysis (cf. Jaeger 2006, 2020) that also takes into consideration a
semantic distinction in terms of factivity. Unlike previous studies which consider semi-
factives either as closer to true factives (Hooper & Thompson 1973) or to non-factives (Dor
2005), our approach is based on a three-fold semantic analysis of factivity, which seems
crucial as evidenced by the gradience in acceptability judgments.

References
Dor, Daniel (2005), Toward a semantic account of that-deletion in English, Linguistics 43(2), 345-382.
Hooper, Joan, and Sandra Thompson (1973), On the applicability of root transformations, Linguistic Inquiry 4,
465-497.
Jaeger, Florian, (2006), Redundancy and syntactic reduction in spontaneous speech, PhD dissertation, University
of Rochester.
Jaeger, Florian (2010), Redundancy and reduction: Speakers manage syntactic information density, Cognitive
Psychology 61(1), 23-62.
Karttunen, Lauri (1971), Some observations of factivity, Papers in Linguistics 4, 55-69.
Kiparsky, Paul, and Carol Kiparsky (1971), Fact, in D. D. Steinberg, and L. A. Jakobovits (eds), Semantics. An
interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 345-369.

Figure
Experiment1: factives
2: General resultsvs. non-factives Figure 2: semi-factives vs. true factives
Experiment 2: zoom into factive verbs
Complementizer No Complementizer Complementizer No Complementizer

6 6
average raw scores

average raw scores

4 4

2 2

Factive Non-factive Factive Non-factive Semi-factive True factive Semi-factive True factive
Factivity Factivity

Factive Non-factive Semi-factive True factive