Corso di Laure Magistrale

in Scienze del linguaggio

Paper of Advanced Syntax

I believe and they say in British National Corpus

Professor:
Alessandra Giorgi
Student:
Sara Tagliapietra
853742
Academic year:
2019/2020
CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Parentheticals

3. Credo and dicono

4. I believe and they say

5. Conclusions

Bibliography

Corpus

1
 1. Introduction

The present work aims at studying some expressions that are generally used to mitigate
the assertiveness of an utterance, either by expressing the speaker’s emotional
implication (as in credo ‘I believe’) or the reliability of the utterance (as in dicono/si
dice ‘they say’) (cf.Umrson 1952:484).
Both I believe and they say, as well as their Italian counterparts credo and dicono, can
be used as non-parentheticals or as parentheticals, i.e. they can be predicates that select
CPs (with or without the complementizers that/che), or be inserted into Left Periphery
of a clause and uttered with a particular intonation, referred to as ‘comma intonation’
(cf. Selkirk 2005).
Set in the theoretical framework of Generative Grammar, this work provides a brief
analysis of the syntactic behaviour and the semantic value of these expressions in Italian
and in English to check whether the two expressions occupy the same structural position
in both languages and whether I believe and they say retain their epistemic and
evidential value, respectively.
In particular, I believe and they say are discussed by taking into account their
occurrences in the British National Corpus.

2. Parentheticals

In this section we will introduce the important notion of parenthetical, to provide clarity
in this study. There is no unique definition of these elements since they do not belong to
a homogeneous class. According to Dehé & Kavalova (2007:7-8) parentheticals
syntactically affect different grammar representations: it is possible to find one-word
parenthetical (what), comment clauses (I think, I believe) or reporting verbs (she said/they
say), adverbials (probably), question tags and more complex sentences (everybody
knows), etc..
Phonologically they require a distinctive intonation, the so-called comma intonation. We
might reduce this complicate notion as the presence of two commas, one on the left and
one on the right of the parenthetical element.

2
Dehé and Kavalova (cf 2007:1) argued that parentheticals interrupt the prosodic flow of
an utterance, that is they seem to be independent from the host sentence but at the same
time they are meaningless without a context.
As a result, we might assert that parentheticals are illocutionarly independent, namely the
host sentence and the parenthetical can be different types of clauses, or have different
truth values:

1) I wonder where my jacket is

(the all sentence is an assertion, but the subordinate clause is an indirect interrogative)
2) Gianni said that Maria should eat less chocolate
(there is an order in an assertive clause)
3) My mum, who God forbid! can be very annoying
(there is an exclamation in an assertion)

Compare now:
4) My brother, who is eighteen years old, has got a car
5) My brother who is eighteen years old has got a car

Analysing the relative clauses 4 and 5 we notice that the first one is an appositive relative
clause, a parenthetical, while the second is a restrictive one. Therefore in sentence 4 it is
true the fact that a brother of mine has got a car, whether is eighteen years old or not; on
the other hand it cannot be true that a brother of mine has got a car, if I do not have a
brother who is eighteen, since the age is a restrictive condition of his existence (Selkirk
2005:14-15).
Nevertheless, if we consider the following example, parentheticals are connected in some
way to the host sentence:

6) Paul, as John told me, is an arrogant child

3
The parenthetical “as John told me” is meaningless in isolation, since it lacks its object,
that appear to be the host clause “Paul is an arrogant child”. Therefore, the isolated
parenthetical is ungrammatical because the object cannot be dropped.

Dehé and Kavalova (2007:13) pointed out that parentheticals belong to a prosody-
oriented head on the left of the clause, according to Selkirk’s (2005:12-17) theory based
on the presence of a [+comma] feature in prosody, responsible of the comma intonation
in phonology, which belongs to an Intonational Phrase.
From these assumptions Giorgi (2010:77) claimed that the speaker’s coordinates are
represented in the Complementizer projection, which is the only available position for
parentheticals and she proposed the presence of the K head in syntax, projecting its
constituent (KP) in the left periphery. Giorgi’s (2015:241) idea is to double the K, which
is the head of the Comma Phrase, to distinguish the parenthetical from the host sentence.
Consequently, the host sentence functions as complement of K, whether there is a
subordinate clause or not.
The structure she introduced (Giorgi 2015:241 ex.41):

[KP K parenthetical [KP K [ host] ] ]

On this basis, scholars’ hypothesis implies that parentheticals are base generated always
in the same position and their final position is obtained through an ellipsis. Therefore, a
host sentence can precede a parenthetical only through ellipsis.
We examine an example provided by Giorgi (2015:241 ex.45):

7) I will leave tomorrow, John said

We discussed above parentheticals are generated in the beginning of the sentence (Giorgi
2015:242 ex.46)

8) [KP K [John said [KP K [ I will leave tomorrow] ] ] ]

4
Through ellipsis, parentheticals can change their position (Giorgi 2015:242 ex.47):

9) [KP [ I will leave tomorrow] K [John said [KP K I will leave tomorrow] ] ]

Ellipsis can be applied both on the left and on the right of parentheticals (Giorgi 2015:242
ex.48,49,50):

10) Mary, said John, will leave tomorrow

11) [KP K [said John [KP K [ Mary will leave tomorrow] ] ] ]
12) [KP [Mary will leave tomorrow] K [said John [KP K Mary will leave tomorrow] ] ]

Another example of double ellipsis (Giorgi 2016:477 ex.26):

13) John will, said Mary, leave tomorrow

14) [KP John will leave tomorrow K [Mary said [KP K [John will leave tomorrow]]]]

At this point Giorgi proposes a backtracking phenomenon (2016:478). We will take it

into account to be able to argue the possible positions of parentheticals, but we will not
deeply discuss this phenomenon.
The last example (Giorgi 2016:478 ex.33) we will consider in this section, clarifies how
the parenthetical and host sentence are connected:

15) I, said Jonh, will leave tomorrow

According to Giorgi’s (2016) proposal, the elements I and tomorrow both refer
exclusively to Jonh and not to the speaker, namely the parenthetical have scope on them.
As we discuss previously, Giorgi (2010) assumes that the speaker’s coordinates must
appear in the C-layer, as it is the leftmost position in the clause. Consequently, to c-
command the all clause, parentheticals are represented on the left of the C-layer.

5
A more thorough analysis of these notions goes beyond the scope of the present work.
We refer the interested reader to Comments on Intonational Phrasing in English: Selkirk
2005; About the Speaker: Towards a Syntax of Indexicality: Giorgi 2010.

3. Credo and dicono

In this section we provide a brief analysis of Giorgi & Pianesi’s (2005) studies.
In Italian, the verb credo has an epistemic value, namely it means that the prepositional
content has a close relationship with the speaker, indeed credo expresses the speaker’s
opinion or idea about the mentioned event. Given that it claims an internal state of the
speaker, it is in the first person.
On the other hand, dicono (or si dice) has an evidential value, that is the speaker is not a
witness of the event, he is just giving an evaluation about the reliability of the reported
content. It refers to an external source, so is expressed by the third person.
If we consider the third person of those verbs, we identify one important feature, that is
the complementizer can be omitted in some subordinate structures, namely in those
subjunctive verbal form clauses. However, it is ungrammatical if the embedded verb is in
indicative mood. Consider the examples:

16) a. Gianni ha detto *(che) è andato via.

Gianni said that he went away.
b. Gianni crede (che) sia andato via.
Gianni believes that he went away (SUBJ)

When these verbs appear as main verbs, they behave in two different ways:

17) a. *Ha detto è partito

(he) said that he left (IND)
b. Credo sia partito
I believe that he left (SUBJ)

6
While the sentences with the first-person main verb are grammatical, the ones that present
the third person are ungrammatical sentences.
Comparing the first and the third person of the verb credo we can claim that they have
different meanings:

18) a. Credo abbia parlato con Maria = opinion of the speaker

I believe that he spoke with Maria (SUBJ)
b. Gianni crede abbia parlato con Maria = the speaker is reporting a belief of Gianni
Gianni believes that he spoke with Maria (SUBJ)

Another feature of these verbs has to do with their distribution in the Left periphery. When
they are complementizer-less, they can appear in the same position as parentheticals.
Parenthetical Credo and dicono require the indicative mood instead of the subjunctive
one, because the latter is ungrammatical, neither with the first nor with the third person.

19) a. Maria (forse)1 ha (forse)2 mangiato (forse)3 un gelato (forse)4

Maria (perhaps)1 has/IND (perhaps)2 eaten (perhaps)3 an ice-cream (perhaps)4
b. Maria (credo)1 ha (credo)2 mangiato (credo)3 un gelato (credo)4
Maria (I believe)1 has (I believe)2 eaten (I believe)3 an ice-cream (I believe)4
c. Maria (dicono)1 ha (dicono)2mangiato (dicono)3 un gelato (dicono)4
Maria (they say)1 has/IND (they say)2 eaten (they say )3 an ice-cream (they say)4
d. *Maria (credo)1 abbia (credo)2 mangiato (credo)3 un gelato (credo)
Maria (I believe)1 has/SUBJ (I believe)2 eaten (I believe)3 an ice-cream (I believe)4

20) a. *Maria abbia mangiato un gelato, credo

Maria ate (SUBJ) an ice-cream, (I) believe
b. *Maria abbia mangiato un gelato, crede
Maria ate (SUBJ) an ice-cream, (he) believes
c. *Maria abbia mangiato un gelato, dicono
Maria ate (SUBJ) an ice-cream, they say

7
With regards to credo this distribution is possible only with the first person,
no matter what verb mood appear in the host clause:

21) a. ? *Maria, Gianni crede, ha mangiato un gelato

Maria, Gianni believes, has eaten an ice-cream
b. ? *Maria ha, Gianni crede, mangiato un gelato
Maria has, Gianni believes, eaten an ice-cream
c. ? *Maria ha mangiato, Gianni crede, un gelato
Maria has eaten, Gianni believes, an ice-cream
d. ? *Maria ha mangiato un gelato, Gianni crede
Maria has eaten an ice-cream, Gianni believes

Comparing credo to the epistemic adverb probabilmente (probably), we can assume they
have the same distribution when the latter is in main clauses (consider previous example
number 19b):

22) (Probabilmente,)1 Maria (, probabilmente,)2 ha (, probabilmente,)3 mangiato un

gelato (probabilmente)4
(Probably)1 Maria (,probably,)2 has (, probably,)3 eaten an ice-cream (probably)4

Despite of the fact that probabilmente can be embedded as a normal adverb and as a
parenthetical adverb, credo cannot be embedded:

23) a. Maria ha detto che probabilmente Gianni ha mangiato un gelato

Maria said that probably Gianni ate an ice-cream
b. Maria ha detto che, probabilmente, Gianni ha mangiato un gelato
Maria said that, probably, Gianni ate an ice-cream

Analysing examples 22 and 23b we can conclude that the two probabilmente have
different interpretation. The former considers the speaker’s opinion (the speaker

8
considers the event as probable), the latter reports someone else’s opinion, not the one of
the speakers. The subject of the main clause is the one considering the event as probable.
In sentences 22 and 23b occurs a shift from the speaker to the main subject. This shift
cannot take place with the verb credo because it is intrinsically marked as a first person,
hence there is no possibility that he can refer to another subject, this first person is always
the speaker.
Although we assumed that credo and dicono have quite the same distribution, in this case
dicono follow the rules of the epistemic adverb probabilmente hence it can be embedded.
The verb dicono refers to a third person plural, therefore it does not refer to the speaker
obligatorily and it can shift:

24) Gianni mi ha raccontato che Maria, dicono, ha mangiato un gelato

Gianni told me that Maria, they say, ate/IND an ice-cream

4. I believe and they say

In this section we will provide a brief study on I believe and they say, based on examples
collected from the British National Corpus.
We have considered about 600 occurrences of I believe and they say from the corpus
mentioned above, featuring the presence of the complementizer, the complementizer
deletion and their parenthetical uses. For each feature, we have selected 25 occurrences.
Some of them are listed in Table 1 and Table 2.
As regards English language, we need to consider that it lacks a subjunctive mood form,
or rather it looks identical to the indicative form. It differs from the indicative form in the
third person since it appears without the -s- ending. The lack of this mood form implies
that there are no differences between the use of the indicative and its subjunctive value in
complementizer or complementizer-less clauses.
Hence, we might assume that the complementizer deletion is not a distinctive
characteristic in English language when I believe, and they say are used as main verbs.
Namely it is possible to write/say the same sentence with the complementizer or with the

9
complementizer deletion without modifying its meaning. An English speaker would
rather use the Complementizer Deletion to promote simplicity.
Regarding their parenthetical usage, we refer to the notion of section 1.

Observe the data displayed in Table 1, which provides the examples of the verb I believe:

Table1: Typology of available constructions with I believe

Typology Examples
1.I believe + Compl a. That 'll be all right, I 'm sure. I believe Francis and
he were rather good friends. (Bnc FPF)1
b. Said Piper: 'I'm confident because I believe Benn
is beatable and I have the ability to do the job'.
(Bnc K97)2
c. ... you called them -- in Durance 's work. Now I
believe Durance didn't paint those pictures.
Perhaps he did some... (Bnc GV2)3
d. … with ministry from the leaders and looking to
God for answers I believe he has healed not only
my drug problem but has cleansed me... (Bnc
CC5)4
e. ...''Maybe.''In fact, I believe he took some
photographs at the party. ''Look here... (Bnc GUF)5
2.I believe + CD a. ...when they are in need of it. Moreover, I believe
that few people in this room will step forward to
denounce the... (Bnc B04)6
b. ...rub each other up the wrong way almost

1
Date: (1985-1994). Title: The possession of Delia Sutherland. Neil, B. London: Bloomsbury Pub. Ltd,
1993, pp. 59-179. 4086 s-units. Id symbol: FPF Register: W_fict_prose
2
Date: (1985-1994). Title: Liverpool Echo & Daily Post. Liverpool: Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Ltd,
1993, pp.??18715 s-units. Id symbol: K97 Register: W_newsp_other_report
3
Date:(1985-1994) Title: Guilty knowledge. Grant-Adamson, Lesley. London: Faber & Faber Ltd, 1988,
pp. 133-259. 3802 s-units. Id symbol: GV2 Register: W_fict_prose
4
Date: (1985-1994) Title: [Queen's Park Baptist church magazines]. 280 s-units. Id symbol: CC5 register:
W_misc
5
Date: (1975-1984) Title: Cast in order of disappearance. Brett, Simon. London: Vicor Gollancz, 1975,
pp. 31-192. 4384 s-units. Id symbol: GUF register: W_fict_prose
6
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Animal welfare and the environment. Ryder, Richard D. (ed.) London: Gerald
Duckworth & Company Ltd, 1992, pp. 9-116. 1662 s-units. Id symbol: B04 Register:
W_non_ac_soc_science

10

3.Parenthetical I believe
immediately. I believe that Frank is too autocratic,
too opinionated -- especially... (Bnc BMM)7
c. ...not yet received reports -- of that demonstration,
but I believe that it is ironic that the IRA and its
supporters should at... (Bnc HHV)8
d. ...Mr. Powell) on his success in the ballot. I believe
that it is a success because there has been an
opportunity here... (Bnc HHX)9
e. ...is a practical objection not one of principle, and I
believe that it was the fundamental reason that
Lord Reid, for example... (Bnc FE1)10
a. ...party of 30 seems very harsh. Brian Robinson, I
believe, has every right to feel aggrieved when he
looks at the other members of the back row. (Bnc
HJ3)11
b. … is part of the balanced transport policy which
was, I believe, brought out in about nineteen
seventy-three and has been... (Bnc KRL)12
c. Roy (-----) here. But he's in hospital, I believe, at
the moment. Who wants to take (pause) (SP:
J9DPSUNK) (Bnc J9D)13
d. ...games is an important element in everything you
do, I believe. You have played chess all your life
and I think that... (Bnc CKW)14

Compare group 1 and 2 to the following sentences:

7
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Linford Christie: an autobiography. Christie, Linford and Ward, Tony. London:
Arrow Books Ltd, 1990, pp.?? 2397 s-units. Id symbol: BMM Register: W_biography
8
Date: (1985-1994) Title: [Hansard extracts 1991–1992]. London: HMSO, 1992, pp.?? 26206 s-units. Id
symbol: HHV Register: W. Hansard
9
Date: (1985-1994) Title: [Hansard extracts 1991–1992]. 20394 s-units. Id symbol: HHX register:
W_Hansard
10
Date: (1985-1994) Title: The Weekly Law Reports 1992 Volume 3. 749 s-units. Id symbol: FE1
Register: W_ac_polit_law_edu

11
Date: (1985-1994) Title: The Belfast Telegraph. u.p., n.d., pp.??. 8316 s-units. Id symbol: HJ3 Register:
W_newsp_other_report
12
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Bill Heine radio phone-in (02). 9 partics, 2645 utts Id symbol: KRL Register:
S_brdcast_discussn
13
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Lincolnshire: Board meeting (Pub/instit). Rec. on 14 Jan 1994 with 10 partics,
332 utts Id symbol: J9D Register: S_meeting
14
Date: (1985-1994) Title: The Art Newspaper. 1952 s-units. Id symbol: CKW Register: W_pop_lore

11
 25) I believe Mary has gone to Paris
26) I believe THAT Mary has gone to Paris

Considering Table 1, if we delete the complementizer in the first group of sentences (1)
and, on the other hand, we add it in the second group of sentences (2) it is demonstrated
that the meaning of the utterance does not change according to the presence or the absence
of the complementizer. Furthermore, it is not decisive to establish whether the sentence
is grammatical or not.
With respect to the parenthetical use of I believe (Table 1, group 3) we can identify some
matching sentences:

27) a. Mary, I believe, has gone to Paris

b. Mary has, I believe, gone to Paris
c. Mary has gone, I believe, to Paris
d. Mary has gone to Paris, I believe

I believe presents the same available positions as parentheticals when it appears

complementizer-less. Those positions are obtained by means of ellipsis as examples 7-
10-13 in section 1.
In Table 2 we provide the occurrences of They say:

Table 2: Typology of available constructions with They say

Typology Examples
4.They say + Compl a. ...England; and whenever they see a handsome
foreigner, they say that he 'looks like an
Englishman ‘... (Bnc AE4)15

15
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Mary Queen of Scots: a study in failure. Wormald, Jenny. London: Collins &
Brown Ltd, 1991, pp. ??. 1310 s-units. Id symbol: AE4 Register: W_non_ac_humanities_art

12
 b. They put a drug on the market and they say that
it’s wonderful and that the side effects are
irrelevant and... (Bnc HV1)16
c. ...said there is a Masterplan behind all of this.
They say that the Banks are trying to create a
climate to lower... (Bnc HCX)17
d. ...hey certainly gave the design the stamp of
approval. They say that they like the subject and
the colours. (Bnc K24)18
e. I write back and ask why. 'They say that they
have nowhere else to go, but I know that... (Bnc
CBC)19
5.They say + CD a. ...or alternatively three people had perjured
themselves. 'They say every man has his double
and it is conceivable they made a mistake.' (Bnc
K54)20
b. …left their five-year-old daughter maimed and
disfigured. They say he could be a free man
within five years, while their... (Bnc KRM)21
c. …a newsagent 's till in Bebington Road,
Tranmere. They say he was aged 28 to 32-years-
old with dark hair. (Bnc K47)22
d. ..., Rostov 's the number two in the KGB. They
say he's going to be the next Director.' (Bnc
G0L)23

16
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Central Weekend Live — part 1: television broadcast (Leisure). Rec. on 29
Oct 1993 with 10 partics, 370 utts Id symbol: HV1 Register:S_brdcast_discussn
17
Date: (1985-1994) Title: BOA Newssheet. 478 s-units. Id symbol: HCX Register: W_commerce
18
Date: (1985-1994) Title: [Central television news scripts]. 4013 s-units. Id symbol: K24 Register:
W_news_script
19
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Today. London: News Group Newspapers Ltd, 1992, pp. ??. 15358 s-units. Id
symbol: CBC Register: W_newsp_other_social
20
Date: (1985-1994) Title: [Northern Echo]. Social material, pp.? 6598 s-units. Id symbol: K54 Register:
W_newsp_other_social
21
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Central News (03): TV news. 9 partics, 1103 utts Id symbol: KRM Register:
S_brdcast_news
22
Date: (1985-1994) Title: [Liverpool Daily Post and Echo]. World affairs material, pp.??. 1073 s-units.
Id symbol: K47 Register: W_newsp_other_report
23
Date: (1985-1994) Title: The Lucy ghosts. Shah, Eddy. London: Corgi Books, 1993, pp. 321-452. 4235
s-units. Id symbol: G0L Register: W_fict_prose

13

6.Parenthetical They say
e. ...to stay in their Liverpool maisonette for six
months. They say they have been waiting to be
moved from the 'temporary accommodation'
ever since. (Bnc K4M)24
a. ...school egg-and-spoon races. Using eggs for
any purpose, they say, exploits hens. #Lords in
waiting # WE CERTAINLY can't take the Lords
for granted. (Bnc CRA)25
b. (SP:PS0W2) So from London to King's Lynn is,
they say, a hundred miles and I'll take their word
for it... (Bnc KE2)26
c. The Lord Chancellor's civil servants can, they
say, only recruit judges from among advocates
who have already... (Bnc ADB)27
d. The health world is fast changing, they say.
Helping women to help themselves has very
positive results. (Bcn K23)28

As regards the verb they say we can assume the same conditions as the verb I believe
when they appear as main verbs. They say licenses the presence or the absence of the
complementizer:

28) They say Mary has gone to Paris

29) They say THAT Mary has gone to Paris

24
Date: (1985-1994) Title: [Liverpool Daily Post and Echo]. World affairs material, pp. ??. 1648 s-units.
Id symbol: K4M Register: W_newsp_other_report
25
Date: (1985-1994) Title: The Economist. 3317 s-units. Id symbol: CRA Register: W_pop_lore
26
Date: (1985-1994) Title: 153 convs rec. by `Terence' (PS0W2) between 20 and 27 Feb 1992 with 10 i's,
8307 utts, and over 12 hrs 49 mins 22 secs of recs. Id symbol: KE2 Register: S_conv
27
Date: (1985-1994) Title: Friends in high places: who runs Britain? Paxman, Jeremy. London: Michael
Joseph Ltd, 1990, pp. ??. 1494 s-units. Id symbol: ADB Register: W_non_ac_polit_law_edu
28
Date: (1985-1994) Title: [Central television news scripts]. 4243 s-units. Id symbol: K23 Register:
W_news_script

14
Parenthetical they say has the same distribution of I believe:

30) a. Mary, they say, has gone to Paris

b. Mary has, they say, gone to Paris
c. Mary has gone, they say, to Paris
d. Mary has gone to Paris, they say

However, we suppose that, differently from I believe, it can be embedded since it allows
the shift of the coordinates from the speaker to the main subject:

31) *Gianni told me that Mary, I believe, has gone to Paris

32) Gianni told me that Mary, they say, has gone to Paris

I believe intrinsically refers to the speaker since it always preserves its first person
features hence it does not allow the shift.
On one side, the epistemic value of I believe expresses the speaker’s attitude or his
commitment towards the information he presents (Lyons 1997, cited in Ana Laura
Rodriguez Redondo & Eugenio Contreras Domingo 2004:115). On the other side,
evidential verb they say deals with the codification of source of knowledge (Ana Laura
Rodriguez Redondo & Eugenio Contreras Domingo 2004:115).
In this case we cannot provide other examples, so the issue is open to further empirical
investigation.

5. Conclusions

We can easily detect the syntactic behaviour of the verbs used as parentheticals in both
English and Italian language. On the other hand, the real issue is to determine whether
their epistemic and evidential values allow the shifting speaker-subject.
Normal parentheticals are independent from their host clauses, in fact they appear in a
distinctive distribution between two commas, however they seem to be necessarily
connected to them, since they cannot occur in isolation. Considering her proposal, Giorgi

15
(2015) illustrates that parentheticals are always generated on the leftmost position of the
C-layer.
Referring to verbs credo and dicono in their third person feature, they appear
complementizer-less in subordinate structure when those require the presence of the
subjunctive mood. The complementizer cannot be omitted in those subordinate clauses in
which occurs the indicative mood. They present a different distribution as main verbs,
namely the verb credo can appear complementizer-less when it is used in first person
whereas in these same conditions the third person dicono (Ha detto) it is ungrammatical.
In their parenthetical usage, these verbs occur in the same positions as normal
parentheticals, if they are followed by the indicative mood.
We can detect their different values in their parenthetical forms: on the one hand credo
has an epistemic value, hence it bears first person features which always refer to the
speaker, on the other hand the evidential verb dicono allows the shift from the speaker to
the main subject, hence it can be embedded, since the speaker does not witness the event
but he just gives an opinion about it.
English language lacks the subjunctive mood, hence the presence or the absence of the
complementizer it is not a distinctive feature. Considering this feature, I believe and they
say license both complementizer and complementizer deletion constructions.
I believe and they say present the same structural positions as credo and dicono, in their
parenthetical usage. In this case they require the complementizer deletion as their Italian
counterparts.
In English we can distinguish a different value when we refer to parenthetical I believe
and they say, as we proved in Italian language. Suhadi (2011, ex.30a) includes the verb I
believe in the group of epistemic lexical verbs and Söderqvist (2020:23) claims that the
verb they say belongs to an evidential category.
Hence, we presume that they say behaves in the same way of dicono, that is it allows the
shift from the speaker to the main subject. As regarding I believe, we suppose that it
follows the rules of credo about the shifting.
Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, no study on this shifting possibility is
available in the literature, so that our considerations on that topic should be considered as
starting points for further research.

16
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The British National Corpus (2007). Distributed by Oxford University Computing
Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. URL:https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc

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