From converb to complementizer: On the syntactic flexibility of dep in Kazakh

Abstract

It is well-attested that in many unrelated languages the linker that connects matrix and subordinate clauses is grammaticalized from the verb 'say' (Lord 1976). There is a long-standing debate as to whether these elements are complementizers (Hyman & Comrie 1981; Clements 1975) or verbs (Major 2024; Driemel & Kouneli 2025; Kinyalolo 1993). This paper argues, in line with recent work (Ye 2025; Yue 2023; Bossi 2023), that a binary analysis is necessary in some languages and the syntactic category of that 'say' element is generally dependent on the matrix predicate. We present novel fieldwork data of Kazakh (Turkic) to show, based on evidence from passives, fragment answers, negation, subject restrictions, interpretation of temporal modifiers, complement types, and stranding, that the element dep sometimes behaves as a complementizer and sometimes as a verb.