Clause boundaries in Old Hittite relative sentences1

Abstract

AbstractHittite relative sentences typically take the form ‘conjunction whichever slaves have run away, conjunction those we shall recover’. The first part (‘conj…away’) is known as the relative clause and the second (‘conj…recover’) as the resumptive clause. However, neither part is always introduced by a conjunction, and there is not always an explicit resumption (‘those’). This paper argues that in Old Hittite, and with exceptions under two well‐defined conditions, the resumption and the conjunction introducing the resumptive clause are strictly both present or both absent. The distinction between sentences with both and sentences with neither points to a structural distinction between adjoined and embedded relative clauses. After Old Hittite, it is no longer necessary for a resumptive clause to include either both resumption and conjunction or neither of these elements. The new possibilities suggest that the Old Hittite embedded relative clauses have been reanalysed as adjoined.