Programme 78. Studentische Tagung Sprachwissenschaft

The present thesis investigates the Latvian complementizer "lai", focusing on its syntactic behavior and semantic contribution in complement clauses. While often treated as a marker of irrealis or non-factual events, "lai" has not yet received a systematic analysis as a mood-marking complementizer comparable to subjunctive systems found in Romance and Balkan languages. This present study provides a theoretical account of "lai" in subordinate clauses selected by volitional, directive and some emotive predicates, such as "gribēt" (to want), "lūgt" (to ask), "cerēt" (to hope) and "uztraukties" (to worry). These "lai" clauses typically express non-assertive future-oriented events and resist factual interpretation.
I propose to analyze "lai" as a subjunctive marker, as it exhibits properties typical of subjunctive mood across languages. Based on syntactic and semantic diagnostics, I argue that "lai" contributes its own meaning and does not merely reflect the semantics of matrix predicates it co-occurs with. This thesis challenges existing accounts by showing that "lai" is not simply a syntactic subordinator, but a semantic operator with consistent modal effects. The findings contribute to the typology of mood and clause embedding, while laying the fundament for future research on mood and modality in complement clauses in Latvian.

Understanding how languages encode mood and modality is one of the central concerns in syntax and semantics. While many languages mark these categories morphologically on verbs, others do so through syntactic means, such as complementizer choice (see, e.g., Portner (2018)). This paper is originally a bachelor's thesis investigating the Latvian complementizer lai, which occurs primarily in directive and desiderative embedded clauses. These lai-clauses typically express non-assertive future-oriented events and resist factual interpretation:

Viņš grib, lai palīdzu.
he.NOM want.3.PRES lai help.1.SG.PRES
‘He wants me to help him.’

Lai can be contrasted with the more common complementizer ka used for factual, declarative statements:

Viņš zina, ka palīdzu.
he.NOM know.3.PRES that help.1.SG.PRES
‘He knows that I am helping.’

Although lai has received some descriptive attention in research (see, e.g., Holvoet (2016, 2020); Holvoet et al. (2021); Kalnača (2011); Kalnača and Lokmane (2021)), its precise syntactic status and semantic contribution in complement clauses remain largely underexplored. I aim to fill that gap by analyzing lai as a marker of subjunctive mood in Latvian. The subjunctive mood is traditionally understood as a non-indicative grammatical category used to express wishes, obligations or attitudes towards non-factual events. It is often realized as a specific morphological form on the verb, however, some languages also have dedicated subjunctive complementizers (Portner, 2018; Quer, 2017).
The thesis is guided by the following research questions: What are the syntactic and semantic properties of lai clauses in Latvian? How do these properties relate to mood-marking strategies in Romance and Balkan languages? The main goals of this thesis are (a) to provide a comprehensive overview of the syntactic properties lai exhibits and (b) to explore the hypothesis that lai encodes a distinct modal meaning comparable to the subjunctive systems found in Romance and Balkan languages. Methodologically, the thesis relies on my own introspective judgments as a native Latvian speaker.

A crucial contribution of this thesis is the recognition of lai as a proper complementizer by looking at certain syntactic diagnostics, including obligatoriness, linear order, complementizer distribution and wh-extraction in order to determine its syntactic status. For instance, in the case of lai emission, the sentence in (4) obtains an indicative reading it would have if the complementizer ka was present, thus suggesting that the modal meaning in such instances is encoded in the complementizer lai:

Anna teica, lai viņi iet mājās.
Anna.SG.NOM.F say.3.PST lai they.NOM.M go.3.PRES home.LOC
‘Anna said that they should go home.’

Anna teica - viņi iet mājās.
Anna.SG.NOM.F say.3.PST - they.NOM.M go.3.PRES home.LOC
‘Anna said - they are going home.’

Additionally, restrictions regarding tense and subject coreference are considered and described. This work is also the first to treat lai as a subjunctive complementizer in Latvian. While earlier studies (e.g., Holvoet (2016, 2020); Holvoet et al. (2021); Kalnača (2011); Kalnača and Lokmane (2021)) have described it as a marker of irrealis or state-of-affairs complements, no previous account has provided a comprehensive syntactic and semantic characterization of lai.

The thesis is structured as follows. Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the Latvian language, focusing on relevant grammatical features and its complementation system. Chapter 3 presents a diachronic and syntactic overview of lai, including its functions in Modern Latvian, core properties and distribution across predicate classes. Building on both existing approaches to Latvian lai as well as cross-linguistic literature on mood, modality and subjunctives, Chapter 4 is an attempt at a preliminary semantic analysis, proposing that lai contributes modal meaning in both embedded and matrix contexts. Chapter 5 briefly situates Latvian lai in a cross-linguistic perspective, comparing its behavior to subjunctive systems in Romance and Balkan languages. Finally, Chapter 6 concludes this thesis by summarizing the findings and proposing directions for future research.

Throughout this thesis, I propose to analyze lai as a subjunctive marker, as it exhibits properties typical of subjunctive mood across languages. Based on syntactic and semantic diagnostics, I argue that lai contributes its own meaning and does not merely reflect the semantics of matrix predicates it co-occurs with. This thesis challenges existing accounts by showing that lai is not simply a syntactic subordinator, but a semantic operator with consistent modal effects. The findings contribute to the typology of mood and clause embedding, while laying the fundament for future research on mood and modality in complement clauses in Latvian.

References
Holvoet, A. (2016). Semantic functions of complementizers in Baltic. In K. Boye and P. Kehayov (Eds.), Complementizer semantics in European languages, pp. 225–263. De Gruyter Mouton.
Holvoet, A. (2020). The dual nature of irrealis in complementation. Studies in Language 44(1), 165–190.
Holvoet, A., L. Lindström, A. Daugavet, and A. Laugalienė (2021). Irrealis in Baltic and Baltic Fennic. Baltic Linguistics 12(12), 349–411.
Kalnača, A. (2011). Atstāstījuma izteiksme un modalitāte palīgteikumos ar lai. Baltistica 46(2), 289–298.
Kalnača, A. and I. Lokmane (2021). Latvian Grammar. Riga: University of Latvia Press.
Portner, P. (2018). Mood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Quer, J. (2017). Subjunctives. In M. Everaert and H. v. Riemsdijk (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, pp. 1–32. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Info

Jour: 2025-11-14
Début: 14:45
Durée: 00:30
Salle: M2.41
Fil: Diverse
Langue: en

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