On relative complementizers and relative pronouns

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Poletto ◽  
Emanuela Sanfelici
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Categorial Status ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
Relative Pronouns ◽  
Internal Head

Abstract This paper explores the syntactic status of che and (il) qual(e) relativizers, i.e. what are standardly referred to as relative complementizers and relative pronouns, in Old and Modern Italian and Italian varieties and proposes a unified analysis for both types of items. It takes into account the ongoing debate regarding the categorial status of relativizers (Kayne 1975, 2008, 2010; Lehmann 1984; Manzini & Savoia 2003, 2011, among many others) and aims at showing that what we call complementizers are not C0 heads, as commonly assumed. Instead, we propose that both relative “complementizers” and “pronouns” have the same categorial status, i.e. they are wh-items and are part of the relative clause-internal head.

scholarly journals Cyclicity and Connectivity in Nez Perce Relative Clauses

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Rose Deal
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Intermediate Position ◽  
Nez Perce ◽  
The Core ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Relative Pronouns

This article studies two aspects of movement in relative clauses, focusing on evidence from Nez Perce. First, I argue that relativization involves cyclic Ā-movement, even in monoclausal relatives: the relative operator moves to Spec,CP via an intermediate position in an Ā outer specifier of TP. The core arguments draw on word order, complementizer choice, and a pattern of case attraction for relative pronouns. Ā cyclicity of this type suggests that the TP sister of relative C constitutes a phase—a result whose implications extend to an ill-understood corner of the English that-trace effect. Second, I argue that Nez Perce relativization provides new evidence for an ambiguity thesis for relative clauses, according to which some but not all relatives are derived by head raising. The argument comes from connectivity and anticonnectivity in morphological case. A crucial role is played by a pattern of inverse case attraction, wherein the head noun surfaces in a case determined internal to the relative clause. These new data complement the range of existing arguments concerning head raising, which draw primarily on connectivity effects at the syntax-semantics interface.

scholarly journals The change that never happened: the story of oblique subjects

2003 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
JÓHANNA BARĐDAL ◽  
THÓRHALLUR EYTHÓRSSON
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Old Icelandic ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
Object Status ◽  
Germanic Languages

This paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the syntactic status of oblique subject-like NPs in the ‘impersonal’ construction (of the type me-thinks) in Old Germanic. The debate is caused by the lack of canonical subject case marking in such NPs. It has been argued that these NPs are syntactic objects, but we provide evidence for their subject status, as in Modern Icelandic and Faroese. Thus, we argue that the syntactic status of the oblique subject-like NPs has not changed at all from object status to subject status, contra standard claims in the literature. Our evidence stems from Old Icelandic, but the analysis has implications for the other old Germanic languages as well. However, a change from non-canonical to canonical subject case marking (‘Nominative Sickness’) has affected all the Germanic languages to a varying degree.

scholarly journals Differences between externally and internally headed relative clause constructions

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chan Chung ◽  
Jong-Bok Kim
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Central Interest ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Internally Headed Relative Clause ◽  
Internal Head

In terms of truth conditional meanings, there is no clear difference between (Korean) IHRCs (internally head relative) and EHRCs (externally headed relative). In the analysis of IHRCs, of central interest are thus (a) how we can analyze the constructions in syntax and (b) how we can associate the internal head of the IHRC clause with the matrix predicate so that the head can function as its semantic argument, and (c) what makes the differences between the two constructions. This paper is an attempt to provide answers to such recurring questions within the framework of HPSG.

The Kurdish Adpositional System: New Perspectives

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Sameerah Tawfeeq Saeed
Keyword(s):  
Categorial Status ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Basic Ideas ◽  
Semantic Properties

In this paper I present a basic descriptive overview of the adpositional system in Kurdish supported by illustrative examples from the Sorani dialect. Based on this, two classes are identified: simple and compound. Their morphological, syntactic and semantic properties are discussed in detail, highlighting the distinctions among them. The classification is further supported by the application of an extended P projection as proposed in Saeed (2015) which shares the basic ideas of Svenonius’ (2010) model of spatial P projection providing a new perspective of the role of spatial adpositions. I also examine the categorial status of several bound morphemes which attach to complements of some adpositions and argue that they are clitics associated with specific locative meanings. I propose the existence of PLACE head as a solution to the syntactic status of the locative clitics. I also show that postulating PLACE in the P projection does not clash with the existence of AxPart as they are two distinct elements syntactically and semantically.

scholarly journals Polskie zdania względne z wewnętrznym rzeczownikiem – wstępne rozpoznanie

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (9) ◽  
pp. 26-40
Author(s):  
Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Object Language ◽  
Syntactic Features ◽  
Subjective Valuation ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Internal Head

troduced by a special relator który to, which in sentences bearing such clauses obligatorily agrees with the internal head. Such clauses have been hitherto overlooked in most syntactic descriptions of Polish. The inquiry is based on 291 citations obtained from the National Corpus of Polish, analysed for their semantic and syntactic features. The results show that double-headed relative clauses in Polish are marked as explicitly non-restrictive (as opposed to standard relative clauses). While identical internal and external heads need to be separated by a phrase governed by the external head, there is no such constraint on nonidentical internal heads. These may have not only nominal, but also clausal antecedents. In addition, non-identity of internal and external heads allows an introduction of subjective valuation (in the internal head) and a switch from object language to metalanguage or vice versa between the governing clause and the relative clause.

scholarly journals A Study of types and core constituents of Acehnese relative clauses

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 397-410
Author(s):  
Denni Iskandar ◽  
Mulyadi Mulyadi ◽  
Khairina Nasution ◽  
Ridwan Hanafiah
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Relative Pronouns ◽  
Chinese Mandarin

This research aims to determine and explain the types and the core constituents of Acehnese relative clauses which so far have not been thoroughly discussed. To collect data for this study, a direct elicitation technique is used, and the data is then analyzed through a qualitative descriptive technique. The results showed that the relative clauses in Acehnese were clauses embedded as modifiers of noun phrases. Similar to the relative clauses’ theory proposed by experts in the Acehnese, there are five types of relative clauses: relativization of subject, relativization of predicate, relativization of object, relativization of possessive, and relativization of noun. Relative clauses in Acehnese are formed by connecting core nouns and relative clauses through the connecting word ‘nyang’, except for the relative clause of the predicate element through the ellipsis of the predicate element. The basic structure of the Acehnese relative clauses is the arrangement of the main constituents preceding (postnominal) the relative clauses. The constituents that described the relative clauses could form words or phrases depending on the reference to the meaning of the relative clauses. In the Acehnese, the following elements do not exist: (1) relative clauses that can be reduced by adverbials such as in English, (2) relative pronouns as in German and relative particles such as in Chinese Mandarin; and (3) the attachment of relative suffixes to verbs as in Korean.

scholarly journals Why subject relatives prevail: Constraints versus constructional licensing

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecily Jill Duffield ◽  
Laura A. Michaelis
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Formal Semantic ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relative Pronouns ◽  
National Corpus

AbstractRelative clauses containing subject relative-pronouns (e.g. that go to Utah all the time,) are the prevalent type both across languages (Keenan and Comrie 1977) and in conversation, accounting for 65% of relative clauses in the American National Corpus (Reali and Christiansen 2007) and 67% of relative clauses in the corpus examined for this study, the Switchboard corpus. This fact appears attributable to parsing preferences, as per Hawkins (1999, 2004), Gibson (1998) and Gibson et al. (2005): subject extractions are the most local filler-gap dependency and therefore impose the lowest burden on short-term memory. This explanation, however, not only lacks strong psycholinguistic support but also fails to explain a major pattern in Switchboard: subject relatives are not preferred across the board but only as modifiers of postverbal (object and oblique) nominals. We propose that the preference for subject relatives is an effect not of general-purpose interpretive or encoding constraints but rather of constructional licensing: the subject relative belongs to an entrenched syntactic routine, the Presentational Relative construction, e.g. I have friends that clip articles (McCawley 1981; Lambrecht 1987, 1988, 2002). We investigate this hypothesis by examining the formal, semantic and pragmatic properties of relative-clause modifiers of postverbal nominals in the Switchboard corpus.

Questions on transitivity

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerd Jendraschek
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Complex Predicates ◽  
Object Function ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Subject Category ◽  
Zero Anaphora ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
Focus Marking

This paper presents those areas of Iatmul morphosyntax that are relevant to a discussion of transitivity. Evidence for the syntactic status of subject and direct object as core arguments comes from S=O ambitransitive verbs, S/O pivots in complex predicates, switch reference, relative clause formation, agreement marking, and obligatory focus marking. In contrast, there is no evidence for the concept of an “indirect object”. Other relevant phenomena to be explored are case marking, verbs whose morphological make-up correlates with transitivity, zero anaphora, and coalescent nouns in complex predicates. In summary, if languages can be characterized by the extent to which they have grammaticalized the control cline between actor and undergoer, Iatmul can be located in the middle field, with a clear subject category, and a more variable direct object function, whose instantiation is primarily determined by semantic and pragmatic factors.

scholarly journals Processus de relativisation en bàsàa: de la syntaxe à la prosodie

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 145-158
Author(s):  
Emmanuel-Moselly Makasso
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Phrase Boundary ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Restrictive Relatives ◽  
Relative Pronouns

Cet article propose une réflexion sur la manière dont la langue bàsàa (Bantu A 43 parlée au Cameroun) exprime la relativisation. En l’absence d’une classe grammaticale de pronoms relatifs la langue utilise la classe des démonstratifs. La stratégie démonstrative mise en place peut selon les cas, associer la classe des locatifs pour déterminer les degrés de définitude. La langue distingue également les relatives restrictives des relatives non-restrictives qui sont soit descriptives, soit emphatiques. Du point de vue prosodique, la fin de la relative en bàsàa coïncide avec une finale de Groupe Intonatif. This article provides a sketch of the morphosyntax and prosody of relative clauses in Bàsàa, a Bantu language (A 43) spoken in Cameroon. The language does not have a class of relative pronouns like French or English. Rather, the language borrows from the demonstrative class to form relatives. Also, the language can involve locatives in the demonstrative strategy to express relative definiteness. Two varieties of relatives can be found in Bàsàa: restrictive relatives and non-restrictive relatives, which can be descriptive or emphatic. Prosodically, we find an Intonational Phrase boundary at the end of the relative clause.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document