An utterance complement is a complement clause which attributes an utterance to some speaker. In many languages, the class of introducing verbs include <i>say, tell,</i> and the like (Cristofaro 2008). 

<br><br>A ´yes´ value for this property indicates that the language has utterance complements clauses which are different from ordinary main clauses. These clauses tend to be various kinds of non-finite clauses. 

<br><br>An example comes from Italian, where complement clauses can be introduced by <i>di</i> plus an infinitive clause, as in the following sentence (Cristofaro 2008):

<br><br>Dice di non poter venire.<br>
says.3sg of NEG can come.INF<br>
´He/she says he/she cannot come.´

<br><br>Another example come from Icelandic, where the verb <i>segja</i> takes an <i>-st</i> suffix followed by an infinitive clause:

<br><br>
Jón seg-i-st vera þreyttur. <br>
John say-s-ST be.INF tired <br>
´John says he is tired.´


<br><br><b>Note</b>: Many languages have several strategies for introducing utterance complements. For these languages, each property should be valued ´yes´ independent of the other properties. 

<br><br><b>References</b><br>
Cristofaro, Sonia. 2008. Utterance Complement Clauses.
In Haspelmath et al. (2008), chapter 128. Available online at <a href=â€http://wals.info/feature/128â€> http://wals.info/feature/128</a href>. 
