Relative clauses in Hausa: A grammaticalization perspective

Abstract

This paper claims that relative clauses in Hausa originate from adverbial scene setting clauses. The scene setting clauses (SSCs) are causal, reason, or circumstantial clauses that evoke known, presupposed information and serve as background to their main clauses. When positioned after a sentence topic, they can shift formally and functionally from clause level to NP level modification and give rise to relative clauses in appropriate contexts. Taking advantage of Role and Reference Grammar's proposed functional and structural similarities between NP and clause modifiers, this paper also gives a representation for various relative constructions in Hausa.