Non-restrictive Relative Clauses Research Articles

What prosody does when morphosyntax is absent: The case of Korean relative clauses

This study investigates the role of prosodic information in linguistic interpretation in the absence of an explicit linguistic marker to resolve ambiguity. We particularly focus on the impact of prosody on comprehension of restrictive relative clauses (RRC) and non-restrictive relative clauses (NRC) in Korean, a language that lacks morphosyntactic or orthographic markers that distinguish between RRC and NRC. We hypothesize that narrow focus prosody may be associated with RRC, while broad focus prosody with NRC, which we test in two experiments through a picture selection task (Experiment 1) and an audio selection task (Experiment 2). Results showed that Korean listeners associated narrow focus prosody more often with RRC-biased pictures than NRC-biased pictures, suggesting that prosodic information has an impact on the resolution of syntactic ambiguity in the absence of any explicit linguistic marker. Further investigation suggests that there is variation in the impact of prosody across individuals and their sensitivity to prosody seems to be affected differently depending on the type of task.

The relative clause resisting unification

Abstract Cinque (2020) presents a unified theory positing that various types of relative clauses (RCs) originate from a single, double-headed universal structure via raising or matching. The Frame Noun-Modifying Clause (FRC) as described and analyzed by Matsumoto et al. (2017a, 2017b) presents a significant challenge to Cinque's framework, as it does not conform to any of Cinque's identified RC types, which include amount RCs, kind(-defining) RCs, restrictive RCs and non-restrictive RCs. The FRC eludes derivation via the proposed matching or raising mechanisms. Determining the semantic link between the head noun and the FRC, as well as its external merger position, remains elusive. One might suggest that inserting additional material into the FRC, which incorporates a plausible internal head, could clarify their connection. This approach falls short of providing a systematic and coherent syntactic criterion, relying instead on semantic intuition that lacks operational reliability.

Sulle costruzioni relative non-restrittive del romeno (a confronto con l’italiano)

Non-restrictive (or appositive) relative clauses can either belong to sentence grammar (integrated non-restrictive relatives) or to the grammar of discourse (non-integrated non-restrictive relatives). Italian has both constructions (the former employs che and cui relative pronouns, while the latter employs the il quale paradigm, with distinct properties). The evidence discussed in the present article induces one to analyse the non-restrictive relatives of Standard (non colloquial) Romanian as belonging to the grammar of discourse.

Contrastive Analysis of Presupposition Triggers in English and Chinese and a Review of Translation Strategies

The definition of presupposition is the fact and information accepted by mutual parties and the presupposition is usually conveyed with common sense or professional knowledge, which is a very common pragmatic phenomenon. For example: Please open the door. A simple request is likely to presuppose that the door is closed and the recipient is capable and willing to open the door. The factors to trigger the presupposition come from a certain phrase or word in a sentence, even the syntactic structure and context. Then these factors are called presupposition triggers. The presupposition triggers are divided into lexical presupposition triggers and syntactic presupposition triggers according to the existing form, vocabulary and sentence pattern of the language. Lexical presupposition triggers include proprietary descriptors, factual verbs, judgment verbs, state-changing verbs, meaning verbs, and repetitions. By contrast, syntactic presupposition triggers include non-restrictive relative clauses, splitting sentences, comparative sentences, time clauses, and subjunctive conditional sentences with opposite conditions. In both Chinese and English, presupposition triggers have similarities and differences. For example, when actual verbs are used as presupposition triggers in English, they are usually passive. Meanwhile, actual verbs are not converted into passive in Chinese. That is to say, when causative verbs are implemented, they are always written in active voice. However, factual verbs as presupposition triggers also indicate a certain state of mind no matter in English or Chinese. Through this paper, readers can have a deeper understanding of the presupposition triggers and the application in the translation process of people's daily English and Chinese in two different languages. Understanding presupposition triggers is very helpful in communicative life and the triggers can be used to summarize the the process of translation and the translation methods in English and Chinese.

Integrated non-restrictive relative clauses in Shupamem

Integrated non-restrictive relative clauses in Shupamem

Presupposition triggers and (not-)at-issueness: Insights from language acquisition into the soft-hard distinction

Presuppositions are traditionally understood as a set of backgrounded, and thus not-at-issue, projective inferences that are taken for granted by communicators. In the last decades it has been observed that presuppositions behave heterogeneously, which lead to a discussion about the distinction between soft and hard presupposition triggers. In this paper, another property of presuppositions is exploited to test if there is evidence for a soft-hard dichotomy: their reluctance to answer the current Question Under Discussion, as observed by Simons et al. (2010). Using a modified acceptability judgment task, we tested children between 4 and 6 years of age and adult controls. Audio recordings with image stills featured both kinds of presupposition triggers in at-issue and non-at-issue exchanges, with non-restrictive relative clauses as controls, as they are conventionally not-at-issue but usually add new information. The results indicate that, for our adult participants, such backgroundedness violations are worse in the case of hard triggers, whereas soft triggers are markedly less deviant in such cases. Children are also sensitive to the soft-hard distinction but react less strongly than adult counterparts to oddity effects. Additionally, hard triggers pattern with non-restrictive relative clauses in both groups.

From gesture- and sign-in-interaction to grammar: Fictive questions for relative clauses in signed languages

We discuss the use of the question-answer pattern for relativization across signed languages, with special attention for Catalan Sign Language. These are cases in which grammatical features of the interrogative construction used for genuine information-seeking questions also appear as the most unmarked, frequent, or only linguistic means of expressing restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses, as well as appositives. This is intriguing, since relative clauses occur within one sentence and thus within one conversational turn, whereas the question-answer structure is prototypically dialogical, representing the turn-taking between addresser and addressee. We analyze such interrogative-like constructions as involving fictive interaction, the use of the conversation frame to structure cognition, discourse, and grammar (Pascual, 2006, 2014). We further suggest that the non-manual feature of eyebrow raising, which marks both information-seeking questions and relative clauses in Catalan Sign Language, became grammaticalized from a common non-obligatory gesture in the spoken Catalan of the surrounding hearing community. Hence, a gesture accompanying spoken language became a linguistic marker in a signed language, illustrating transfer between languages of different modalities. This is also presented as showing the emergence of grammar from situated intersubjective interaction (Li and Thompson, 1976; Sankoff and Brown, 1976). We make a case for the understanding of grammatical structure as primarily reflecting its mode of usage rather than some sui-generis Universal Grammar. This paper is based on the bibliographic study of 17 signed languages from different families and the qualitative analysis of own Catalan Sign Language data from different discourse genres.

Towards a prosodic model for Tiberian Hebrew: An intonation-based analysis

This study advances a preliminary framework for conceptualising the prosodic nature and structure of Tiberian Hebrew (TH) represented by the ṭaʿămê hammiqrāʾ through an analysis of an extant Ashkenazi cantillation tradition. The ṭaʿămê hammiqrāʾ (lit. “the senses of the reading [viz. Scripture]”) are notations added by medieval scribes to the written text of the Hebrew Bible to preserve and transmit its oral performance. Modern prosodic theory and the musical concept of conjunct and disjunct melodic motion are used to demonstrate that the ṭaʿămê hammiqrāʾ have a highly structured iconic and intonational basis that organises the system and conforms substantially to Selkirk’s (2000, 2009) cross-linguistic prosodic hierarchy. The intonation-based prosodic model proposed in this study offers a solution to the limitation Dresher (1994, 2013; see also Dresher and DeCaen 2018; DeCaen and Dresher 2020) encounters with the intonational phrase domain of his prosodic model, permitting an alternative analysis of so-called pausal forms as lengthened forms, which can occur at prosodic phrase boundaries regardless of pause. The intonation-based model is tested by assessing how accurately it reflects the cross-linguistic prosodic features of restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses. The results indicate that TH distinguishes three prosodic classes of relatives—prosodically marked restrictives, prosodically marked nonrestrictives, and prosodically undifferentiated relatives—findings that accord with Birkner’s (2012) intonation-based study of the prosodic structure of German relative clauses.

A probe into discourse structure of english relative clauses of Iranian EFL learners’ reading and writing performance: Centering theory in focus

The purpose of this study was to explore the function of English restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in discourse cohesion and also intended to examine the possible differences between...

The Interpretation of Null Subjects in a Radical Pro-drop Language: Topic Chains and Discourse-semantic Requirements in Chinese

Abstract Based on original data collected through an online experiment, evidence is provided in this paper that the interpretation of null subjects in a radical pro-drop language like Chinese relies on the topic criterion proposed for consistent and partial pro-drop languages (Frascarelli 2007 and Frascarelli 2018), thereby supporting the theory that the null subject parameter implies an information-structural strategy for interpretation. Nevertheless, radical Chinese shows specificities that must be integrated in this theory for a comprehensive account. In particular, even though silent topic can start chains (consistent with the topic criterion), data show a significant preference for overt and local topics as antecedents. This locality requirement thus integrates phonological visibility in a general syntactic condition (minimal overt link condition), proposing an interesting parallel with the properties shown by partial pro-drop languages (Frascarelli and Jimenez-Fernandez in press). The present investigation also contributes to outline the structural differences existing between adverbial clauses in Chinese, supporting a distinction between central and peripheral adverbial clauses (Haegeman 2012). Specifically, while temporal and conditional clauses show the properties of nonrestrictive relative clauses, this is not the case for concessive clauses, which merged as subordinate clauses in either the C-domain or the high split-TP area. Differences between temporal and conditional clauses are attributed to the presence of an overt operator in the latter, and the pre-matrix position of adverbial clauses is explained in the light of their discourse role as frame-setters (Krifka 2007).

It depends: Optionality in the production of filler-gap dependencies

Abstract This study investigates the language production mechanisms underlying the creation of filler-gap dependencies (e.g., relative clauses: This is the boy that the girl from Norway saw_ yesterday), which require speakers to establish an argument-predicate relationship between a phrase, the ‘filler’, (the boy) and a further embedded predicate (saw). We show that filler-gap dependency production involves the retention of a representation of the filler until the relevant embedded position. We then report three elicitation experiments examining how English and Hebrew speakers manage and moderate filler retention demands via production choices. In Experiments 1 (English) and 2 (Hebrew), speakers produced restrictive relative clauses and non-restrictive relative clauses with the latter predicted to impede filler retention. In Experiment 3 (Hebrew), speakers produced relative clauses with and without intervening material creating interference for filler retention. We found that English speakers use passivization to moderate filler-retention demands via the creation of shorter dependencies. In Hebrew, impeded filler retention resulted in increased rate of grammatical resumption. We conclude that the production of filler-gap dependencies invokes cognitive strategies that manage the memory burdens that they impose.

Switch-reference and Insubordination in Ngarla (Ngayarta, Pama-Nyungan)

In this article, the switch-reference system of Ngarla (Ngayarta, Pama-Nyungan) is described in detail. Switch-reference is shown exclusively to occur in non-restrictive relative clauses. There are three sets of suffixes marking switch-reference, tense being distinguished with same subject marking. The so-called ‘naturalness assumption’ regarding the association between SS/DS marking and simultaneous/sequential ordering is shown to hold true in certain contexts. However, it may also be violated. Switch-reference marked constituents that form part of noun phrases are also discussed, as well as insubordinate uses (in Evans’ 2007 sense) of the switch-reference suffixes, and marked and unmarked switch-reference clauses.

Attachment in Syntax and Discourse: Towards an explanation for the flexible scope of non-restrictive relative clauses

Abstract Schlenker (2013) gives a number of puzzling counterexamples to the widely accepted claim that non-restrictive relative clauses (NRCs) are always interpreted with respect to the global context, and never in the scope of entailment-canceling operators such as if. Local readings are available for NRCs attached to their host clause by a coordinating coherence relation. This paper develops a theoretical explanation of this pattern. We argue that NRCs are interpreted locally only if they are attached locally to their host clause both in syntax and in discourse structure. Subordinating coherence relations like Elaboration and Explanation resist discourse attachment in the scope of if because they tend to go together with relations that can only hold between speech acts. Like other subordinate clauses, NRCs tend to express subordinating coherence relations, which ultimately explains their pervasive tendency for global interpretation. In other words, this study shows how a theory of discourse coherence can help solve a problem in sentence semantics.

English It-Clefts as non-Restrictive Relative Clauses

English It-Clefts as non-Restrictive Relative Clauses

INTERPRETING THE AT-ISSUE STATUS OF NON-RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: A CASE OF SERBIAN EFL STUDENTS

Linguistic utterances can convey content which represents the speaker’s main point and is considered to be at-issue, as well as secondary content which is interpreted as not-at-issue. A large number of diverse expressions which carry some kind of not-at-issue content have been identified. The present paper contributes to the ongoing investigation of one group of such expressions, non-restrictive relative clauses (NRRCs), in English as a foreign language. The starting point of the paper is an approach developed by Jasinskaja (2016), which accounts for at-issue status within the general theory of discourse interpretation. An important prediction that it makes is that final NRRCs connected with their main clauses via coordinating discourse relations should express more at-issue behavior than final NRRCs connected with their main clauses via subordinating discourse relations. Relying on this approach, the present paper aims to investigate the way Serbian EFL students interpret the at-issue status of NRRCs and to compare the results to the existing data in English (Živković 2016). The direct rejection test (Tonhauser 2012) was used to diagnose the at-issue status of the test items, which involved the manipulation of coordinating and subordinating discourse relations between main clauses and NRRCs. The overall results indicated that the percentage of rejections targeting coordinate NRRCs was significantly higher than the percentage of subordinate NRRC rejections. Comparing these results to the ones obtained in English showed that Serbian EFL students performed at the same level as native speakers of English when interpreting the at-issue status of English NRRCs.

Non-restrictive relative clauses in Arabic

This paper discusses the syntax of non-restrictive relative clauses in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It provides a thorough description of their structures and attempts to offer a preliminary analysis within the transformation framework: Minimalist syntax. Two relativization strategies are available for Arabic non-restrictive relative clauses. The first strategy is similar to that of definite restrictive relatives in which the relative clause is initiated by ʔallaðiwhich is a relative complementizer, whereas the second strategy is a unique one in which the relative clause is initiated by the special particle wa, appears to be a specifying coordinator, along with the complementizer ʔallaði. The paper also argues that De-Vries’s (2006) coordinate approach to appositive relatives can provide a straightforward account for some the facts of non-restrictive relative clauses in Arabic.

Embedding non-restrictive relative clauses

Schlenker (2010) recently provided data from English and French suggesting that,contrary to standard assumptions (McCawley, 1982; Potts, 2005; Arnold, 2007; AnderBoiset al., 2011), non-restrictive relative clauses (NRCs) can take narrow scope under operators ofthe sentence within which they are embedded. This paper presents three experiments in Germanconfirming this claim. The results show that embedded readings are available with NRCs inGerman and give first insights into the puzzle under which conditions these embedded readingsdo or do not show up.Keywords: relative clauses, appositives, projection, rhetorical relations.

Conceptualization of Persian Relative Structure in Cognitive Grammar

Abstract
 In the cognitive approach to linguistics, language is considered as a part of the cognitive system which mirrors the conceptual organization as well as the world within the speakers' mind. According to this view, the outside world experience is reflected in the language structure and language forms. This modern approach includes a variety of principles, perspectives, assumptions and models, among which the Cognitive Grammar Model is recognized as the most noticeable one. This grammar considers a symbolic nature for a language which symbolizes the meaning and thought. On the other hand, relativization as a notion in every individual's mind and cognition is considered as a universal manifested in all languages. Thus, the present research tries to clarify the conceptualization and symbolization of Persian relative structure from the cognitive point of view and by the use of cognitive means. It, also studies different types of relative structures in Persian, on the basis of Langacker (2008) model and differentiates the restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in Persian. The methodology used in the analysis of this research is the descriptive-analytical methodology. For the data collection, the corpus methodology is used and examples of Persian relative structures are studied. The present research findings show that Persian conceptualization of the relative structures can be clarified in the cognitive approach and Persian relative structures can be studied on the basis of Langacker model.

On the Nature of Wh-word in English Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses

646. This paper raises a question on exactly what the nature of Wh-word in English Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses (NRRCs) is, as opposed to that in Restrictive Relative Clauses (RRCs). Other than being equipped with a Wh-element in common, there exist overwhelming asymmetries between English RRCs and NRRCs. Based on the generalizations and disparities between RRCs and NRRCs brought forward in the literature (Quirk, et. al. 1972, 1985, Borsley 1992, Kayne 1994, Borsley 1997, McCawley, 1998, Lobeck, 2000, De Vries 2002, 2006, Aoun & Li 2003, Authier & Reed 2005, Arnold & Borsley 2008) this paper examines the nature of Wh-word in English NRRCs, which has long been neglected in the generative syntax field. We argue that the Wh-word heading NRRCs is not a Wh-Operator since it shows no signature properties of (linguistic) operators; no WCO effect, no Reconstruction effect, no quantificational properties (Aoun & Li 2003, Authier & Reed 2005), whereas the Wh-word in RRC is. The formal features of the Wh-phrase in NRRC are lacking (Law 2000), so that it is argued here to be a deficient Wh-exp, or Wh-expletive with the minimal features. All in all, we argue that the Wh-word heading NRRC is not Wh-operator and the construction is a relative in disguise.

On the Nature of Wh-word in English Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses

On the Nature of Wh-word in English Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses