A corpus-linguistic study of multiple relative clauses in Chinese

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates the ordering restriction of two relative clauses modifying the same head noun phrase in Chinese. We use both retrospective and corpus data to challenge Larson and Takahashi's (2007) account of the ordering of such multiple relative clauses in Chinese in terms of the distinction of individual-level and stage-level relative clauses. Instead, we offer an account based on the discourse function of the multiple relative clauses in Chinese. Specifically, we argue that relative clauses that serve to provide grounding information for the head noun tend to precede other types of relative clauses. The proposed ordering restriction is shown to account for the ordering of multiple relative clauses in both Chinese and English.