scholarly journals Raising and matching in Pharasiot Greek relative clauses: A diachronic reconstruction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
METIN BAGRIACIK ◽  
LIEVEN DANCKAERT
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Functional Structure ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses

This paper studies the structure and origin of prenominal and postnominal restrictive relative clauses in Pharasiot Greek. Though both patterns are finite and introduced by the invariant complementizer tu, they differ in two important respects. First, corpus data reveal that prenominal relatives are older than their postnominal counterparts. Second, in the present-day language only prenominal relatives involve a matching derivation, whereas postnominal ones behave like Head-raising structures. Turning to diachrony, we suggest that prenominal relatives came into being through morphological fusion of a determiner t- with an invariant complementizer u. This process entailed a reduction of functional structure in the left periphery of the relative clause, to the effect that the landing site for a raising Head was suppressed, leaving a matching derivation as the only option. Postnominal relatives are analyzed as borrowed from Standard Modern Greek. Our analysis corroborates the idea that both raising and matching derivations for relatives must be acknowledged, sometimes even within a single language.

scholarly journals Non-restrictive relative clauses in Arabic

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Abdulrahman A Alqurashi
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Restrictive Relatives ◽  
Modern Standard ◽  
Minimalist Syntax

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.

scholarly journals Relative clause comprehension revisited: commentary on Eisenberg (2002)

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
EVAN KIDD
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Real Time Processing ◽  
Time Processing ◽  
The Real ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Requirements Acquisition

Eisenberg (2002) presents data from an experiment investigating three- and four-year-old children's comprehension of restrictive relative clauses (RC). From the results she argues, contrary to Hamburger & Crain (1982), that children do not have discourse knowledge of the felicity conditions of RCs before acquiring the syntax of relativization. This note evaluates this conclusion on the basis of the methodology used, and proposes that an account of syntactic development needs to be sensitive to the real-time processing requirements acquisition places on the learner.

scholarly journals Some kind of relative clause

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 163-180
Author(s):  
Jon Ander Mendia
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Special Case

Amount Relatives (ARs) differ from restrictive relative clauses in that they do notrefer to a particular object denoted by the head of the relative clause, but to an amount of suchobjects (Carlson, 1977a; Heim, 1987). Traditionally, ARs have been regarded as degree expressions.In this paper I argue against this view and propose instead that amount interpretations ofrelative clauses are in fact a special case of kind interpretation.Keywords: kind reference, amounts, relative clauses.

scholarly journals An HPSG analysis of the non-integrated wh-relative clauses in German

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Holler
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Abstract Entity ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses

In this article, the so-called wh-relative clause construction is investigated. The German wh-relative clauses are syntactically relevant as they show both, root clause and subordinate clause properties. They matter semantically because they are introduced by a wh-anaphor that has to be resolved by an appropriate abstract entity of the matrix clause. Additionally, the wh-relative clause construction is discourse-functionally peculiar since it evokes coherence. Besides these interesting empirical characteristics, whrelatives raise important theoretical questions. It is argued that the standard HPSG theory has to be extended to account for non-restrictive relative clauses in general, and to cope with the particular properties of the wh-relative construction.

Child and adult construal of restrictive relative clauses: Knowledge of grammar and differential effects of syntactic context

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
CATHY FRAGMAN ◽  
HELEN GOODLUCK ◽  
LINDSAY HEGGIE
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Mature Adult ◽  
Adult Performance ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Context ◽  
Selection Of

We report four act-out experiments testing the sensitivity of adults and three- to five-year-old children to the distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in English. Specifically, we test knowledge of the fact that restrictive relative clauses cannot modify a proper name head, and of the fact that relatives introduced by that (as opposed to a wh-pronoun) are obligatorily restrictive. Both children and adults show knowledge of these properties. No support was found for the hypothesis that children extend the block on proper name heads to wh-relatives. Both children and adults are sensitive to the syntactic context (double object vs. existential) in which the relative clause is embedded. However, adults differ from children in four respects. First, in the double object context, adults are more likely than children to commit the error of construing a that relative as referring to a proper name head. Second, the effect of syntactic context on selection of a head is larger for adults than for children. Third, for adults, but not for children, the effect of syntactic context interacts with the type of relative clause. Fourth, adults, but not children, are influenced by whether they hear the existential context before the double object context. We propose that by three to four years of age children have acquired an adult-like grammar of relative clauses, and that the differences we see in child and adult performance can be attributed to that grammar in combination with a mature (adult) or immature (child) sentence processing capacity.

Recovery of information in Relative Clauses: evidence from Greek and Hebrew

1980 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Formation Process ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Movement Strategy

Modern Greek has a Relative Clause Formation process by which the target of Relativization is deleted under identity with the head of the Relative Clause – these Relative Clauses are introduced by the invariant complementizer particle pu, which also introduces factive complements. (Greek also has a movement strategy for Relative Clauses, with an inflected Relative pronoun, but the details of this process are irrelevant here.) Examples of the deletion strategy are given below in (i):

Discontinuous noun phrases and remnant-internal relativization in the diachrony of Portuguese

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Internal Position

This chapter investigates syntactic change regarding the availability of split noun phrases in relative clauses in the diachrony of Portuguese. In earlier stages of the language an element that is thematically dependent on the head noun (either as a complement or as a modifier) may not appear adjacent to it but in a relative clause internal position. In Contemporary European Portuguese, noun phrase discontinuity also arises in relative clauses, but only with the modifier/complement in the rightmost position. The word order with the modifier/complement at the left periphery of the relative clause is not allowed. The change is explained as being due to the loss of a left-peripheral position for contrastive focus within relative clauses (and possibly other types of subordinate clauses). Hence, the contraction of clause structure and the concomitant loss of movement are taken to constrain the possibilities of phrasal discontinuity found in earlier periods.

Descriptive relative clauses in Austro-Bavarian German

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Wiltschko
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Upper Austria ◽  
Definite Articles ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractThis article discusses the syntactic and semantic properties of descriptive relative clauses, a type of relative clause discussed in the literature on Chinese. It is argued that descriptive relative clauses are found in the dialect of Upper Austria, a version of Bavarian German. In particular this dialect has a set of reduced definite articles that are used for discourse referents that are intrinsically uniquely identifiable, as a matter of world knowledge. As such, they cannot be restricted by a relative clause, where restriction is taken to exclude alternatives. Such DPs can, however, be modified by descriptive relative clauses. I propose that descriptive relative clauses attach to NP while restrictive relative clauses attach to nP. Thus, the article contributes to determining whether there are different relative clauses associated with different layers of projections in the nominal domain.

Oblique marked relatives in Southern Interior Salish: Implications for the movement analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-382
Author(s):  
John Lyon
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Movement Analysis ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Analytical Problem ◽  
Structural Position ◽  
Interior Salish ◽  
Internal Gap

AbstractThis article examines relativization strategies in Southern Interior Salish, and focuses specifically on an analytical problem introduced by a subset of Okanagan relative clauses which are introduced by the oblique marker t. I first show that Okanagan relative clauses, like those in Northern Interior Salish languages, are formed by movement of a clause-internal DP or PP to the left-periphery of the relative clause CP. As such, the particles which introduce an Okanagan relative clause code the relation of a clause-internal gap to the relative clause predicate. For some relatives introduced by the oblique marker t, however, the oblique marker does not code this relation, and so by hypothesis cannot have undergone movement. These problematic cases can be explained if clause-internal movement in Southern Interior Salish targets a higher structural position than in Northern Interior Salish. This analysis also potentially explains the DP-internal “prepositions” characteristic of Southern Interior Salish.

scholarly journals Preposition Stranding vs. Pied-Piping—The Role of Cognitive Complexity in Grammatical Variation

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Christine Günther
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Cognitive Complexity ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Grammatical Variation ◽  
Preposition Stranding ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Processing Effort ◽  
The Right

Grammatical variation has often been said to be determined by cognitive complexity. Whenever they have the choice between two variants, speakers will use that form that is associated with less processing effort on the hearer’s side. The majority of studies putting forth this or similar analyses of grammatical variation are based on corpus data. Analyzing preposition stranding vs. pied-piping in English, this paper sets out to put the processing-based hypotheses to the test. It focuses on discontinuous prepositional phrases as opposed to their continuous counterparts in an online and an offline experiment. While pied-piping, the variant with a continuous PP, facilitates reading at the wh-element in restrictive relative clauses, a stranded preposition facilitates reading at the right boundary of the relative clause. Stranding is the preferred option in the same contexts. The heterogenous results underline the need for research on grammatical variation from various perspectives.

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