Relative construction in Hittite

Abstract

SummaryThe paper proposes a novel structural analysis of Hittite determinate relative clauses on the basis of a corpus study considering a wider and fuller array of Hittite data than ever before. In Hittite, relativewh-phrases attest a wide range of linear positions: first/initial, clause-second, immediately preverbal or even postverbal. We build upon the current assumption thatwh-pronouns are clitics and thus their placement is determined by the syntax-prosody interface. As for the syntactic component, we argue against thein situconstrual ofwh-elements. Instead, we propose that what linearly appears to be clause-second, preverbal or postverbal position of thewh-pronoun is structurally associated with Spec, FinP. The prosodic component is provided by the standardly acknowledged prosodic inversion, but the prosodic domain for the placement ofwh-clitics is not clausal (CP), it is rather to be identified with a smaller domain within CP, namely, FinP. We also provide the first ever systematic treatment of splitwh-phrases which are highly problematic for existing approaches but are fully accounted for by our analysis.