The article presents the results of a corpus study of constructions with sentential complements in literary Albanian including: (1) subjunctives with the complementizer që, (2) subjunctives without që, and (3) indicatives. Special attention is paid to the construction “që + subjunctive” which is practically not described in the existing literature. We make an attempt to find out which semantic classes of matrix predicates can combine with “që + subjunctive” and what determines the choice of this complement type against a background of complements with indicatives and subjunctives without a complementizer.

The study is based on the material from the Albanian National Corpus (ANC). Our analysis follows the approaches to complementation proposed by M. Noonan, T. Givon, K. Boye & P. Kehayov, N. R. Dobrushina, and A. A. Zaliznyak, while taking into account the information about complementation and complementizers in Albanian, found in Albanian grammars, papers on Albanian syntax, and studies in Balkan linguistics (P. Asenova, B. Joseph, R. Rushiti). The variability of the three complement types with different matrix predicates is described on the basis of such parameters as time reference dependency of complements, epistemic dependency (truth-valued and non-truth-valued complements), relation of complements to reality (realis and irrealis), equi-relation between notional subjects of matrix and complement clauses, and the degree of control the main clause subject has over the situation and/or the subject of the complement.