Split-antecedent relative clauses and the symmetry of predicates

Claudia Poschmann,Christopher Götze,Sascha Bargmann,Gert Webelhuth,Manfred Sailer,Anke Holler,Thomas Ede Zimmermann

doi:10.21248/zaspil.61.2018.495

Abstract

This paper presents the results of two experiments in German testing the acceptabilityof (non-)restrictive relative clauses (NRCs/RRCs) with split antecedents (SpAs). Accordingto Moltmann (1992), SpAs are only grammatical if their parts occur within the conjuncts ofa coordinate structure and if they have identical grammatical functions. Non-conjoined SpAsthat form the subject and the object of a transitive verb are predicted to be ungrammatical. Ourstudy shows that the acceptability of such examples improves significantly if the predicate thatrelates the parts of the SpA is symmetric. Moreover, it suggests that NRCs and RRCs behavedifferently in these cases with respect to the SpA-construal. We can make sense of this observationif we follow Winter (2016) in assuming that transitive symmetric predicates have to beanalyzed as unary collective predicates and thus provide a collective antecedent for the RC atthe semantic (not the syntactic) level. As we will argue, this accounts for some of the disagreementwe found in the literature and gives us new insights into both the semantics of symmetricpredicates and the semantics of NRCs.Keywords: non-restrictive relative clause, restrictive relative clause, symmetric predicate, splitantecedent.

Highlights

We speak of a split antecedent (SpA) of a relative clause when the antecedent is jointly expressed by distinct syntactic constituents in its host clause, as in (1)
The results confirm that both RC-TYPE and SYMMETRY affect the acceptability of SpA-RCs
Our study confirms that SpAs are possible at least with NRCs and shows that the symmetry of the matrix predicate can remedy examples in which the two antecedents of an SpA are neither overtly conjoined nor have identical grammatical functions.14. This accounts for some disagreement we find in the literature and gives us new insights into both the semantics of symmetric predicates and the semantics of NRCs

Summary

Introduction

We speak of a split antecedent (SpA) of a relative clause when the antecedent is jointly expressed by distinct syntactic constituents in its host clause, as in (1). (1) Mary met a mani and John met a woman j [whoi, j knew each other well]. Moltmann (1992) assumes that split antecedents are only possible if the antecedent phrases occur within the conjuncts of a coordinate structure and if they have identical grammatical functions, which is the case in (1). This generalization correctly excludes the sentence in (2a), where we find an overt conjunction, but the first antecedent phrase is the subject of the first conjunct, and the second antecedent phrase is the direct object of the second conjunct. Our findings will shed new light on the diverging judgments in the previous literature and provide insights into both the semantics of symmetric predicates and SpA-relatives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion