The syntax of correlatives in Isbukun Bunun

Abstract

This paper investigates the correlative construction in Isbukun Bunun, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan. I show that in this language the correlative clause and its associated anaphoric element do not form a constituent at any point in the derivation. Drawing on evidence from island-insensitivity, the absence of Condition C effects and non-constituency facts, I propose that the syntactic relation between the correlative clause and the nominal correlate is derived by a base-generated adjunction structure. Moreover, I argue that the correlative clause, which behaves as a generalized quantifier, binds the nominal correlate phrase in the matrix clause, which is construed as a bound variable. The proposed quantificational binding view is further shown to capture the types of correlate phrases allowed in Isbukun Bunun correlatives.