noun
- Plural of complementizer; words or morphemes that introduce subordinate clauses and mark their grammatical relationship to the main clause.
Usage: linguistics; formal grammar
Examples
- In English, 'that' and 'whether' are common complementizers used in noun clauses.
- The complementizers 'if' and 'that' serve different functions in conditional and declarative sentences.
- Linguists study how complementizers vary across different languages and dialects.
- The sentence 'I know that you left' contains the complementizer 'that' introducing the subordinate clause.
- Some complementizers are optional in English, as in 'I think (that) he is right.'