This paper reports on the results of a corpus-based study exploring several major types of omissible complement clause markers. Throughout, the distribution of rival variants with or without these markers is accounted for in terms of the Complexity Principle correlating processing complexity and grammatical explicitness. The focus is on the use of passivized matrix verbs as well as other complexity factors in the active, which favour the more explicit variants containing the function words in question. At the same time, the paper registers, wherever practical and instructive, any parallels and differences between British and American English. In most cases, the variation phenomena in question are the result of ongoing developments either introducing or reducing the use of the relevant function words.
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