Relativization in modern Greek: Another look at the accessibility hierarchy constraints

Abstract

The claims made by Keenan and Comrie (and others) concerning relativization in Universal Grammar and the interaction of relative clause formation with the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy have necessarily been based on a limited amount of data from the many languages surveyed. A more detailed look, however, at relativization in one of the languages included in the sample, namely Modern Greek, reveals that certain aspects of Greek relative clause formation do not conform to the putative universals of relativization derived from the accessibility hierarchy. The necessary descriptive background for seeing how Greek provides this counter-evidence is given here, as is a discussion of the theoretical consequences of these facts.