scholarly journals Whatever His Arguments, Whatever Relatives Are Not Free Relatives: A Reply to Caponigro’s Reply

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Caterina Donati ◽  
Francesca Foppolo ◽  
Ingrid Konrad ◽  
Carlo Cecchetto
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Controlled Experiments ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Garden Variety ◽  
Free Relative

This is a reply to Caponigro 2019, which argues that the phrase structure theory proposed by Donati and Cecchetto (2011; 2015) falls short of accounting for the attested patterns of free relative clauses. Caponigro questions the reliability of the data supporting D&C’s hypothesis that ever-relatives introduced by a phrase ( ever+NP relatives) should not be assimilated to free relatives. This paper reports the results of 4 controlled experiments in English and Italian and discusses five properties that set apart free relatives from full relatives (occurrence with a complementizer, occurrence with a relative pronoun, infinitival use, absolute use, adverbial use). Crucially, ever+NP relatives do not pattern like free relatives in any of these five domains, either in Italian or in English. This clearly shows that ever-relatives are not a counterexample against D&C’s phrase structure theory. Another potential counterexample, Romanian free relatives, is also discussed. As for the analysis of ever+NP relatives, in Italian they are shown to be garden variety headed relatives, while in English they are headed relatives that involve a D to D movement which is responsible for the syntactic formation of the complex determiner what+ ever.

Danish non-specific free relatives

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Anne Bjerre
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Phrase Structure Grammar ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative

Within the Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) community, one part of the Base Hypothesis concerning free relatives proposed by Bresnan & Grimshaw (1978) has gained wide support, namely that free relatives are headed by the wh-phrase. The second part of the hypothesis is that the wh-phrase is base-generated, and this has not gained support. In this paper, we will consider a subset of free relative constructions, i.e. non-specific free relatives, and provide support for this second part, restated in HPSG terms as a claim that there is no filler–gap relation between a free relative pronoun filler and a gap in the sister clause of the free relative pronoun.

Free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Yucatan Peninsula ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Unified Description

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis and description of the syntax of free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya, the Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The description and analysis focus on two structural properties of these free relative clauses; a) the internal nature of the relative pronoun, and, b) the absence of matching effects observed in Yucatec free relatives when a prepositional phrase is relativized. I show that these two phenomena receive a unified description in an analysis where Yucatec, in contrast with a language like English, allows the head of the noun phrase to be null.

scholarly journals Headless Relative Clauses in Pesh

2021 ◽  
pp. 509-546
Author(s):  
Claudine Chamoreau
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Left Edge ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
The Right ◽  
Almost All

The aim of this study is to describe the two main kinds of headless relative clauses that are attested in Pesh, a Chibchan language spoken in Honduras: free relative clauses, which use a wh-word that functions as a relative pronoun at their left edge and a subordinator at their right edge, and headless relative clauses, which lack a wh- word but show a case marker or the topic marker at the right edge of the clause. The first type is less frequently attested in the natural corpus this study relies on, although the corpus does contain various instances of maximal, existential, and free-choice free relative clauses. Each of the constructions is distinguished by features of the wh-word and/or by certain restrictions regarding the tense of the verb in headless relative clauses or the type of verb in matrix clauses. The second type of headless relative clause, the ones that do not use a wh-expression, are much more frequent in the corpus and behave like headed relative clauses that lack a wh-expression. They are like noun phrases marked by a phrase-final case marker or the topic maker. The case or topic markers are used for light-headed relative clauses and for almost all types of maximal headless relative clause that have neither a light head nor a wh-expression, in contrast to maximal free relatives, in which only locative wh-words occur.

scholarly journals In Defense of What(ever) Free Relative Clauses They Dismiss: A Reply to Donati and Cecchetto (2011)

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 356-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivano Caponigro
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Free Relative

I argue that the version of phrase structure theory proposed by Donati and Cecchetto (2011) falls short of accounting for the attested patterns of free relative clauses not only in English but crosslinguistically in general. In particular, I show that free relative clauses can be introduced not only by wh-words like what or where, which is what Donati and Cecchetto predict, but also by wh-phrases like what books or whatever books and their equivalents in other languages, which Donati and Cecchetto explicitly predict not to be possible.

Headless Relative Clauses in Ch'ol

2021 ◽  
pp. 362-402
Author(s):  
Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez ◽  
Jessica Coon
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Relative Structure

This chapter surveys headless relative clauses in Ch’ol, a Mayan language spoken in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. Ch’ol is rare among Mayan languages in possessing a special morpheme found with relativized nouns, the second position clitic = bä. While this morpheme is required for relativized argument nouns, it is not present in free relatives, which suggests a different derivation for this class of construction. Maximal (definite) and existential (indefinite) free relatives are described. They both make use of a fronted wh-expression and lack the morpheme = bä. Maximal and existential free relatives in Ch’ol appear identical to one another in structure. Following existing studies on other languages, it is argued that the different interpretations of these clauses are a result of the environments in which they appear. Finally, Ch’ol has two different types of constructions in which a determiner element is followed by a headless relative: one corresponding to the = bä structure and one corresponding to the free relative structure. The former is proposed to be a regular headed relative clause with an unpronounced head, as has elsewhere been argued for Yucatec. The latter, on the other hand, corresponds to a free relative structure with an added determiner element.

Relabeling Heads: A Unified Account for Relativization Structures

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caterina Donati ◽  
Carlo Cecchetto
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Nominal Phrase ◽  
Free Relative

A tenet of any version of phrase structure theory is that a lexical item can transmit its label when merged with another category. We assume that if it is internally merged, a lexical item can turn a clause into a nominal phrase. If the relabeling lexical item is a wh-word, a free relative results; if it is an N, a full relative results; if it is a non-wh D, a pseudorelative results. It follows that the head of a relative construction cannot be more complex than a lexical item. We show massive evidence that when it is otherwise (e.g., the book about Obama that you bought), the modifier is late-merged after the noun has moved and relabeled the structure.

scholarly journals Free relatives in Maltese

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-159
Author(s):  
Louisa Sadler ◽  
Maris Camilleri
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Identical Type ◽  
Existential Construction

Abstract This paper makes a contribution to our understanding of free relative clauses (frcs) in Maltese, in particular so-called plain, standard or non -ever free relative clauses. We demonstrate that such frcs are interpreted as definites, consistent with the findings in much previous literature on other languages. However, we also show that Maltese has not one but two strategies for plain (realis or definite) frcs: alongside frcs formed using a wh-word we also find frcs introduced by the complementising element li, inconsistent with the seemingly widespread assumption that frcs necessarily involve a wh-word. Both strategies give rise to definite interpretations. Additionally, we argue that definite or realis wh-frcs are to be distinguished from a different (but apparently structurally identical) type, the so-called irrealis free relative clause or modal existential construction, which has not been previously identified for Maltese. We show that this subset of free relatives exhibit the properties associated with the modal existential construction crosslinguistically. We then demonstrate the existence of a subtype of headed relative clauses in Maltese which also share a number of the properties which we identify in the Maltese modal existential construction.

scholarly journals A further argument for a syncretic analysis of DOM and dative in Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-73
Author(s):  
Carlos Muñoz Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Differential Object Marking ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Left Dislocation ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Repairing Effect ◽  
Object Marking

AbstractThis paper offers an argument to analyse the Spanish form /a/ as a syncretic case marker for accusative differential object marking (dom) and dative. The literature on free relative clauses has established that syncretism allows the repair of feature mismatches arising from contradictory selectional requirements between the matrix and the embedded predicates. By combining clitic left dislocation constructions (CLLD) and free relatives, it is shown here that dom and dative grant the same repairing effect in Spanish, so it follows that they must be syncretic categories. The same type of configuration distinguishes the directional preposition a and the dative case marker, which is taken to indicate that these elements are mere homophones in the language. Furthermore, an analysis of the repairing effect of syncretism is offered.

scholarly journals The puzzling nuanced status of who free relative clauses in English: a follow-up to Patterson and Caponigro (2015)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
RICHARD STOCKWELL ◽  
CARSON T. SCHÜTZE
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative

This squib challenges Patterson & Caponigro's (2015, this journal) claim that there are few acceptable free relative clauses with who. We show that free relatives with who are generally acceptable when they are ‘transparent’ free relatives or complements of a copula, and add further nuance to their findings concerning how the degree of acceptability of free relatives with who varies according to positional factors.

Headless Relative Clauses in Tseltalan

2021 ◽  
pp. 403-443
Author(s):  
Gilles Polian ◽  
Judith Aissen
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative

This chapter investigates headless relative clauses in Tseltal and Tsotsil, languages which make up the Tseltalan branch of Western Mayan. Headless relatives introduced by wh- interrogative expressions (free relatives) are associated with two interpretations: maximal and existential. There is no distinct free-choice free relative construction, but free-choice interpretations arise as possible readings of maximal free relatives. There are other headless relative clause constructions in Tseltalan which involve an overt determiner combined with the wh-pronoun or which lack an overt wh-pronoun. The authors argue that some of these are derived from headed relative clauses, with discourse-conditioned elision of the head noun, while others are based on free relatives in which the wh-pronoun is augmented by a determiner.

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