Johanna,
Neat post. The more I hear about cognitive gramamr, the more I like what
I hear.
In functional grammar, the clause would be thought of as consisting of a
process plus participants plus circumstances. Certain kinds of processes
allow certian kinds of participants, and that goes for the subject (or
actor) role as well. Mental process verbs can take whole clauses as
participants. In that way of thinking, there isn't that sharp divide
between what can be thought of as complementary to the verb. (It doesn't
have to occur in the predicate.)
And by that line of reasoning, we wouldn't have strong reasons not to
think of "that" as complementizer.

Craig

Johanna Rubba wrote:

>I would revise Bruce's line of reasoning as follows:
>
>1. Something about the world leads me to believe that stuttering is a
>natural condition.
>2. Therefore, it should be the case that a lot of people stutter.
>3. In reality, the number of people who stutter is small; my expectation
>is not the case.
>4. Therefore, I am surprised.
>
>Semantic relations involved here are experiencer (surprised person) and
>source of surprise (counterintutitive fact that few people actually
>stutter). The counterintuitiveness of the fact lies in items 1 and 2 above.
>
>An interesting point is the motivation for choosing the particular
>structure "more people don't stutter" over the alternative "so few
>people stutter". Both "more people don't" and "so few people stutter"
>imply the comparison between expectation and reality. I don't have any
>guesses as to what the motivation might be.
>
>As to Craig's comment, I agree that it's odd that subjects of verbs are
>not called complements. In Cognitive Grammar, subjects are clearly
>complements, because the semantic structure of any verb includes a slot
>for its subject; the subject is one of the terms in the relation that
>the verb designates (in other words, it is one of the arguments of the
>predicate the verb names). It is the only argument in the case of many
>intransitive verbs, such as 'sleep'. Perhaps there is a subtlety in the
>definition of complements that keeps subjects out and that I am not
>aware of.
>
>My image analogy for verbs and their complements is puzzle pieces: A
>verb is a puzzle piece with one or more 'female' slots. The complements
>are puzzle pieces with a 'male' part that can fit into one of the verb's
>'female' slots. The complements may, in turn have female slots for their
>own complements--e.g., prepositions or adjectives such as 'proud' which
>can take complements. In the end, this model is a little too
>linear--it's not too good at modeling what is usually called
>'hierarchical' structure (which I prefer to view as 'complementary' structure).
>
>Another model for the sample utterance comes from mental space theory
>(Gilles Fauconnier's work). Mental spaces are imaginary mini-worlds that
>we set up in our mind as we think; they are portrayed in the language we
>use. Everything we utter codes one or more mental spaces. In this case,
>you have a mental space in which stuttering is natural, therefore many
>people stutter. You have another mental space which reflects the
>utterer's apprehension of reality: The number of stutterers is small.
>These two spaces conflict, hence the surprise. Mental spaces are claimed
>to have some kind of conceptual (psychological) reality; it's not just a
>formal model.
>
>Mental space theory has been used to model many instances of
>counterfactuals, metonymy, and much more. Fauconnier's foundational work
>is called Mental Spaces and was published in 1985. The intent of the
>book was to solve several stubborn problems of formal semantics, such as counterfactuals.
>
>There has been a good deal of work using this framework for all sorts of
>applications, from everyday language to literature. The current version
>of the model is called conceptual blending theory. Fauconnier and
>another scholar, Mark Turner, lay it out in a recent book for the
>general reader called "The way we think". Very cool book.
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
>English Department, California Polytechnic State University
>One Grand Avenue  " San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
>Tel. (805)-756-2184  "  Fax: (805)-756-6374 " Dept. Phone.  756-2596
>" E-mail: [log in to unmask] "      Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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