Empty complementizers

Some analyses allow for the possibility of invisible or "empty" complementizers. An empty complementizer is a hypothetical phonologically null category with a function parallel to that of visible complementizers such as that and for. Its existence in English has been proposed based on the following type of alternation:

He hopes you go ahead with the speech
He hopes that you go ahead with the speech

Because that can be inserted between the verb and the embedded clause, the original sentence without a visible complementizer would be reanalyzed as

He hopes øC you go ahead with the speech

This suggests another interpretation of the earlier "how" sentence:

I read in the paper øC [it's going to be cold today]

where "how" serves as a specifier to the empty complementizer. This allows for a consistent analysis of another troublesome alternation:

The man øC [I saw yesterday] ate my lunch!
The man øC [I saw yesterday] ate my lunch!
The man that [I saw yesterday] ate my lunch!

where "OP" represents an invisible interrogative known as an operator.

In a more general sense, the proposed empty complementizer parallels the suggestion of near-universal empty determiners.