Relative Clause Formation Research Articles

Voice and relativization without movement in Malagasy

Major syntactic processes in Malagasy (Madagascar) are conditioned by its rich, typically W. Austronesian, voice system. This is true of the formation and interpretation of relative clauses, focus constructions, nominalizations, control structures, imperatives, the distribution of reflexives, and more. Similar claims hold to varying extents in related languages. Limiting ourselves to Malagasy, we derive, and compositionally interpret, nuclear Ss headed by verbs in different voices. Such Ss are directly projected from verbal affixes, not derived by A or A′ movement, contra other approaches. We derive relative clauses (RCs) directly from predicates in different voices. No operator movement is needed or used. We compositionally interpret RCs, which only requires interpreting predicates in different voices but not variable binding operators or bound variables. This yields a new analysis of the “Subjects Only” constraint in Malagasy. Further, Malagasy’s rich voice system suggests a cognitive trigger for the use of variable binding operators in RCs in voice-poor languages such as English.

African American English: A Linguistic Introduction (review)

Reviewed by: African American English: A linguistic introduction by Lisa Green Tracey L. Weldon African American English: A linguistic introduction. By Lisa Green. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 285. ISBN 0521814499. $31.99. Lisa Green’s African American English: A linguistic introduction is a thorough, insightful, well-organized overview of the structure and use of African American English (AAE). In this book, G accomplishes her goal of describing what ‘speakers know when they know African American English’ (1) by presenting, in clear detail, the rule-governed nature of the variety and the many and varied ways that it is used by members of the African American speech community. After a short introductory chapter, in which she briefly addresses the labeling of the variety and the well-documented linguistic debate over its origins, G turns to a synchronic description of AAE. In Ch. 1, she proposes a three-part organization of the AAE lexicon that includes general words and phrases, aspectual markers, and current slang terms associated with particular age groups or regions. In Ch. 2, she describes the syntactic properties of aspectual markers be, bin, and dən, showing how they are used in AAE and how these uses differ from the uses of auxiliary verbs of similar form in general American English. Ch. 3 focuses on other syntactic properties, including rules of negation, existential constructions, question and relative clause formation, preterite constructions, and certain morphosyntactic properties. Ch. 4 describes the phonology of AAE, focusing on processes such as consonant cluster reduction, final consonant devoicing, liquid vocalization, sound substitutions, and various types of vowel and prosodic patterning. After demonstrating the rule-governed nature of the variety, G turns, in Ch. 5, to a description of African American rhetorical strategies, including signifying, marking, rapping, and loud talking. She looks at nonverbal expressions such as cutting eyes and giving dap. And she describes some of the ritualized language found in African American church services. In Ch. 6, G analyzes the authenticity and effect of strategies used by writers from various time periods in their representation of phonological, syntactic, and lexical features of AAE. Ch. 7 looks at the representation of AAE in the media, with a discussion of both the minstrel-type language used to exaggerate stereotypes and the use of actual structural and rhetorical features for creating various types of images in television and film. Finally, Ch. 8 deals with attitudes toward AAE, ranging from linguistic approaches to the variety to the layperson’s perspectives, with a particular focus on the legitimacy of AAE and its role in employment and education. While many books have been written about AAE, especially in the last decade, G provides one of the most comprehensive introductions to the variety for students of linguistics. The level of detail and sophistication with which she presents the material makes it ideal for undergraduate or beginning graduate students in linguistics, who are seeking a thorough introduction to the variety. From the focal points and excerpts that begin each chapter to the summaries and exercises that end them, this book is detailed, data-driven, and well-informed and is truly an important contribution to the study of AAE. Tracey L. Weldon University of South Carolina Copyright © 2006 Linguistic Society of America

Merge and binding in child relative clauses: the case of Irish

This study investigates whether children learning Irish as a first language show a preference for one or other of the two mechanisms for relative clause formation used in the adult language (movement and binding), and what details of the grammar of Irish relative clauses children are sensitive to. Our results suggest that Irish-speaking children have acquired both a movement and a binding mechanism for relativization by age five, and that they additionally have a non-movement mechanism for forming subject relatives, one that is not licensed in adult Irish. The data is discussed in the context of other studies of relativization in child language, cross-linguistic evidence and the computation of binding structures in language production and processing.

Two types of resumptive pronouns in polish relative clauses

This paper discusses two types of resumptive pronouns found in Polish relative clauses: (i) adjacent resumptives and (ii) embedded resumptives. It will be argued that adjacent resumptives are truncated forms of the relative operator, whereas embedded resumptives are ‘regular’ resumptive pronouns found in other languages like Hebrew and Russian. Support for this claim will come from analyzing the differences between adjacent and embedded resumptives, and analyzing the similarities between adjacent resumptives and relative operators. Cross-linguistic data involving the interaction of relative clause formation and resumption, as well as the interaction of cliticization and resumption will provide additional support for the above claim.

A corpus-based validation study of the universal processing hypothesis in English relative clause formation

The present study focuses on spoken and written data in the British National Corpus (BNC). Based on a review of recent studies on English relative clauses, we formulated a Universal Processing Hypothesis (OS >OO>SS> SO) as target hypothesis to be validated using a corpus data approach. A computer program was designed to calculate the frequency of appearance of the four types of relative clauses (OS, OO, SS, and SO). The results indicated this hypothesis to be a valid predictor of frequency of appearance of relative clauses in the domain for written corpus texts. However, it is not supported in context-governed spoken material. Limitations of the present investigation and the direction of future research are also discussed.

Are There “Double Relative Clauses” in Korean?

It has been claimed that Korean allows the relativization of another relative clause, deriving the double relative clause. The presence of double relative clauses has led some researchers to argue that Korean relative clauses do not involve any operator movement, but instead involve a mechanism such as unselective binding (Sohn 1980, Y.-S. Kang 1986), where an operator binds variables in situ. In this squib, we argue that there is no true double relative clause, thus no real threat to the operator movement analysis for relative clauses in Korean. More specifically, we propose that double relative clauses are derived from double nominative constructions, through relativizing the first nominative NP that originates from an IP-adjoined position. Given our analysis, double relative clauses are not instances of island violations, and the operator movement analysis for relative clause formation in Korean can thus be maintained

Relative clause formation in the Bantu languages of South Africa

This article discusses (verbal) relative clauses in the Bantu languages spoken in South Africa. The first part of the article offers a comparison of the relative clause formation strategies in Sotho, Tsonga, Nguni and Venda. An interesting difference between these language groups concerns the syntactic position and the agreement properties of the relative marker. Whereas the relative markers in Sotho, Tsonga and Venda are clause-initial elements, which express agreement with the head noun, the relative markers in the Nguni languages are relative concords, which are prefixed to the verb and agree with the subject of the relative clause. The second part of the article addresses this difference and shows that there is a historical relation between these two types of relative constructions. It is argued that earlier forms of Nguni employed relative markers similar to those used in present-day Sotho and Tsonga. In Nguni, these relative markers underwent a grammaticalisation process which turned them into relative concords. A detailed analysis of the syntactic conditions for, and the properties of, this grammaticalisation process leads to a hypothesis about the reasons why relative concords have developed in Nguni, but not (to the same extent) in Tsonga, Sotho and Venda.

Remnant Movement in Tagalog Relative Clause Formation

In this squib, the author argues for a TP-fronting derivation of head-final relative clauses. Chief evidence for this analysis comes from stranding in relative clauses formation in the Austronesian language Tagalog. He shows a clear correlation between stranding and scrambling in this language, on the basis of which he concludes that stranding in relative clauses is also a case of scrambling, followed by fronting of the remnant clause

Word-level and phrase-level prefixes in Zulu

This article investigates two strategies of relative clause formation in Zulu, a Bantu language spoken in South Africa. The standard way of forming a relative clause in Zulu involves a prefix (a so-called 'relative concord') which is attached to the predicate of the relative clause. In this strategy, the relative concord expresses agreement with the subject of the relative clause. In a second strategy, the relative concord seems to be prefixed to the first word of the relative clause; in this position, it agrees with the head noun. The main claim of this article is that the second strategy of relative clause formation in Zulu is an example of phrasal affixation. I show that the relative concord does not merge morphologically with the first word of the relative clause, but is attached to the whole relative clause. Following Anderson (1992), I analyse this kind of phrasal affixation as an inflectional process; the relative clause is a predicate, and the relative concord in the second strategy expresses agreement between this phrasal predicate and the head noun.

Relative clause formation in Romance childs production

Relative clause formation in Romance childs production

Typological considerations on second language acquisition

In this paper I claim that the functional typological approach may offer fruitful insights to interpret Second Language data. I assume that the range of grammatical choices languages of the world use to code a given semantic relation is potentially available to learner languages and it is thus expected that learner languages show features which, although different from their source or target languages, may find a counterpart in some other languages of the world. To this purpose, I will draw on second language data in the domain of relative clause formation and will also discuss the notion of relative clause construction in typology and acquisition. I also address a terminological and methodological point, namely whether the learning of the grammatical structures of a target language may be compared to grammaticalization as a diachronic process concerning the historical development of grammatical categories. Despite clear differences of conditions, I will nonetheless argue that both types of grammaticalization may help to discover general properties of language change.

WH-extractions and relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese

This paper aims to describe and explain WH-extraction patterns out of island contexts in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), by means of the principles established by Generative Theory. I claim that BP uses a strategy for the extraction of subjects which involves a special case of Agreement. Extractions out of relative islands are possible when the extracted WH-phrase ends up in the specifier position of the higher CP and from there it behaves as the subject of the predication. The subject-predicate relationship established under agreement makes Comp a proper governor for traces in subject position under its scope. The analysis proposed makes a distinction between two processes of relative clause formation. One in which que is an operator that transforms sentences into predicates and sits in the Comp position of a CP whose specifier can be occupied by a QP functioning as the subject of the predication. The other, in which que is a WH-word, traditionally treated as a pronoun, occupying the specifier position of a QP and introducing relative clauses as we know them.

Which way? That way? Variation and ongoing changes in the English relative clause

Among the syntactic features of contemporary English, the relative clause is one of the most interesting, both theoretically and in respect of variation. This paper examines some of the main ways in which modern English varieties around the world (including both standard and near‐standard varieties, and ‘new’ varieties as well as traditional native‐speaker usage) differ in respect of relative clause formation, and draws attention to the theoretical upshots of some of the phenomena in question, the likely origins of these phenomena and the possible explanations for cases in which features are shared between apparently unassociated varieties. Studies conducted by the present author and by other scholars are taken into consideration and the prospects for further work on each phenomenon are outlined. The features in question are: omission of subject relative pronouns; use of ‘redundant’ subject relative pronouns in non‐ finite ‘reduced relative’ clauses; omission of prepositions with relative pronouns as prepositional completives; use of ‘whereby’ or ‘where’ for a range of prepositions with relative pronouns as prepositional completives; avoidance of ‘that’ with human antecedents; hypercorrect use of ‘whom’ for ‘who’; use of ‘that’s’ as possessive of relative ‘that’; loss, re‐structuring or reversal of the formal contrasts between restrictive and non‐restrictive relative clauses.

The Structure and Acquisition of Relative Clauses in Serbo-Croatian

Serbo-Croatian is a language with a dual system of relative clause formation. By the test of obedience to subjacency, sto and koji relatives are formed by successive cyclic movement, whereas za koga relatives are formed by pronominal linkage. Elicited production and comprehension experiments were conducted with preschool children. We interpret the results as evidence that children initially treat sto relatives as nonmovement relatives, contrary to the facts of the adult grammar. Za koga relatives are mastered by only a small number of children. We discuss our results in the context of the cross-linguistic typology of relative clauses and previous studies of the acquisition of relative clauses, arguing that a nonmovement analysis of relatives is unmarked for relative clause formation (in comparison to wh-question formation) and that a nonmovement analysis may represent a common first stage in the acquisition of relative clauses.

Subjacency and Japanese Grammar

It has been claimed by Hasegawa, Yoshimura, Nishigauchi, Kikuchi, Saito and Watanabe, among others, that Japanese observes subjacency in relative clause formation, question formation, topicalization, comparative deletion (all non-overt operator movements), PP-topicalization, and scrambling (overt movements). In this paper I present counterexamples to each of these claims and argue that an aboutness condition on topic-comment and focus-comment constructions not only better explains the data but also explains the fact that subjects are usually easier to relativize than non-subjects, the fact that NP-topicalization is more free than PP-topicalization and the fact that there is pressure for a "list" interpretation in multiple wh-questions.

Aspects of tenseless relative clauses in Basque

This article is concerned with some aspects of relative clause formation in Basque that have thus far remained unnoticed in the generative tradition: the behavior of tenseless relative clauses (TRC henceforth). My purpose here will be mainly descriptive in that I will solely concentrate on the striking parallelisms and similaraties between tensed relative clauses in Basque (the subject matter of extensive studies by de Rijk 1972, Oyharcabal 1986, 1988, Ortiz de Urbina 1989, Artiagoitia 1990) and their little studied tenseless counterparts. Consequently, the discussion of some theoretical issues has been left aside in some cases in favor of a clear presentation of previously unknown paradigms. The introductory part reviews the main facts concerning tensed relatives. Section 2 introduces the reader to the typology of tenseless relative clauses in Basque; the following sections each present the relevant data showing how tenseless relatives mirror and relate to the behavior of tensed relatives.

Relativization strategies: NP accessibility in Welsh

This paper' is concerned with strategies for relative clause formation, both in the universal and language-specific sense. It builds on the pioneering work of Keenan & Comrie (1977) and proposes some extensions to this work. The basic issues addressed here concern what exactly 'case-coding' strategies in relative clause formation are, why languages should use such strategies, and what form the strategies can take. Language-specific illustration is given from Modern Welsh, a language which exhibits some relativization strategies not discussed by Keenan and Comrie, but which nonetheless broadly supports their proposals. The outline of the paper is as follows: Section 2 discusses the Accessibility Hierarchy, giving definitions and re-examining some basic concepts. A new Hierarchy Constraint is introduced, and the effects of this and other proposals concerning the redefinition of case-coding are examined. Section 3 looks at initial consonantal mutation as a strategy in Welsh relative clause formation; Section 4 examines a strategy of demotion from a higher to a lower position on the Hierarchy. Section 5 examines the wider range of relativization strategies which are found, particularly in Colloquial Welsh, towards the lower end of the Hierarchy. A language-specific expansion of the Hierarchy is proposed, and justified.

Predication, WH-Movement, and the Development of Relative Clauses

French is generally considered to be fundamentally identical to English with respect to relative clause formation. However, I show that up to at least 6 years of age, French-speaking children, although they do have WH-movement in questions, show no evidence of having a WH-movement strategy for constructing relative, clauses. This contrasts with English-speaking children, who seem to acquire WH-movement in relative clauses relatively early. As noted by various researchers, children of 4 and 5 years of age produce relatives headed by the WH word what (The dog what bit him) in areas where the local dialect does not have what as a relative pronoun (cf. Flynn & Lust, 1980; Goodluck, personal communication, February 1988; Menyuk, 1969).

Relative clause formation in Breton

Relative clause formation in Breton

Haitian Creole Syntax

In this paper we examine several aspects of Haitian Creole syntax in light of the recent proposal that a determiner can be the head of a minor maximal projection. We argue that an incorporation of this proposal into the analysis of several aspects of Haitian Creole syntax, including clause structure, question formation, and relative-clause formation, can resolve several puzzling problems. In addition, the paper adds to the theory of minor heads in that it shows that such heads must be considered to inherit major category features from their complements.