Internally-Headed Relative Clauses in Hakha Chin

Abstract

Hakha Chin, an underdocumented Tibeto-Burman language, is reported to have internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs), a typologically rare syntactic structure in which the head noun phrase surfaces within the relative clause itself. The current study provides new data and novel observations which bear on several outstanding questions about IHRCs in this language: 1) Relativization of locative and instrumental adjuncts in IHRCs is avoided. 2) Conflicting stem allomorph requirements of negation and relativization of non-subjects give rise to optionality in stem choice when the two are brought together in an IHRC. 3) To relativize an indirect object, an IHRC is either avoided altogether, or the noun phrase is fronted to the absolute left-most position in the embedded clause. 4) Relativization of NPs with a human referent in an IHRC exhibit relativizer gender agreement, which has not been previously reported for this clause type in Hakha Chin.