Talk at SEALS

Hooi Ling Soh (Minnesota) recently presented a joint project of ours at the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (hosted by National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan). Our paper was titled “Clausal Complementation, Finiteness and Object Control in Hmong” (abstract follows). Thanks, Hooi Ling—I wish I could have come along!

Hmong complement clauses can be introduced by the complementizers (hais) tias, kom or (hais) tias kom (Jaisser 1984, Jarkey 2006). We claim that Hmong complementizers reflect a finiteness distinction in the complement clause. While (hais) tias complement clauses are finite, kom and (hais) tias kom complement clauses are non-finite. We further address a puzzling word order flexibility with object control verbs (Jaisser 1984, Jarkey 2006), whereby the matrix object/embedded subject can appear before or after the complementizer kom. We argue that the pre-complementizer position involves an object control structure, while the post-complementizer position need not, on the basis of a contrast in meaning. Our analysis supports the universality of the finiteness distinction and shows that finiteness can be encoded in the C-system in a language that does not mark tense/agreement overtly.