On amharic Relative Clauses

1972 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailu Fulass
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
The Right

In what follows I would like to discuss the structure of Amharic relative clauses. In the course of the discussion, I would like to make the following three claims which I will attempt to substantiate in turn. First, I believe that relativization is a kind of pronominalization and, consequently, the particle yä- that is attached to the main verb (or its auxiliary) of the relative clause is not a relative pronoun. Second, I maintain that the ‘yä- clause’ in subject position in Amharic cleft sentences is also a relative clause with an unspecified element as its head. My third claim is that Amharic genitive phrases originate from relative clauses and that the noun (phrase) in the genitive phrase to which the particle yä- is attached in surface structure is governed by a preposition in underlying structure, and the head of a genitive phrase is the head of the under-lying relative clause. In this connexion, I also argue that there is a rule in Amharic which moves the particle yä- (to the right) over, at least, one constituent.

scholarly journals Headless Relative Clauses in Pesh

2021 ◽  
pp. 509-546
Author(s):  
Claudine Chamoreau
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Left Edge ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
The Right ◽  
Almost All

The aim of this study is to describe the two main kinds of headless relative clauses that are attested in Pesh, a Chibchan language spoken in Honduras: free relative clauses, which use a wh-word that functions as a relative pronoun at their left edge and a subordinator at their right edge, and headless relative clauses, which lack a wh- word but show a case marker or the topic marker at the right edge of the clause. The first type is less frequently attested in the natural corpus this study relies on, although the corpus does contain various instances of maximal, existential, and free-choice free relative clauses. Each of the constructions is distinguished by features of the wh-word and/or by certain restrictions regarding the tense of the verb in headless relative clauses or the type of verb in matrix clauses. The second type of headless relative clause, the ones that do not use a wh-expression, are much more frequent in the corpus and behave like headed relative clauses that lack a wh-expression. They are like noun phrases marked by a phrase-final case marker or the topic maker. The case or topic markers are used for light-headed relative clauses and for almost all types of maximal headless relative clause that have neither a light head nor a wh-expression, in contrast to maximal free relatives, in which only locative wh-words occur.

Free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Yucatan Peninsula ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Unified Description

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis and description of the syntax of free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya, the Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The description and analysis focus on two structural properties of these free relative clauses; a) the internal nature of the relative pronoun, and, b) the absence of matching effects observed in Yucatec free relatives when a prepositional phrase is relativized. I show that these two phenomena receive a unified description in an analysis where Yucatec, in contrast with a language like English, allows the head of the noun phrase to be null.

scholarly journals High Vs Low: Turkish Parser’s Attachment Preferences to Relative Clauses

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-270
Author(s):  
Cengiz TURAN
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Eye Tracker ◽  
General Direction ◽  
Online Processing ◽  
Fixation Durations ◽  
Structural Ambiguity ◽  
Early Processing ◽  
Main Verb

The present study investigates parsing preferences to Turkish relative clauses (RC) using eye-tracker method and comprehension questions presented to the participants following each experimental sentences. In this framework, the possible effects of the RC on attachment types (low – high) were analyzed. The data gathered from a total of sixty participants were considered. Twenty-eight experimental sentences were developed based on RC and two attachment types thus, testing four conditions along with twenty-eight filler sentences. General direction of processing is that the high attachment (HA) configuration caused slightly less cognitive load than the low attachment (LA). Nevertheless, reading times belonging to HA sentences statistically longer on NP2 (the second noun phrase following the RC area). Longer fixation durations on main verbs were observed with significant differences in LA sentences. Regarding the answers to the comprehension questions, the data complement the findings from online processing. It  can be stated that Turkish parser prioritizes syntactic operations during the early processing. However, lexical-semantic information of the main verb  overrides these operations in the event of a structural ambiguity. Processing of HA sentences is more rapid than the LA sentences. Overall, Turkish is suggested to be a HA language.

scholarly journals Relativization Strategies of Sasak Ngeno Ngene Dialect in Lombok

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Nurachman Hanafi ◽  
Udin Udin ◽  
Eni Djuhaeni ◽  
Edy Syahrial
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Typological Approach ◽  
Coding Strategy ◽  
The Right

Relative clauses (RC), in whatever the languages, are essential for investigation especially on how noun phrases as nuclear and oblique relations are workable in Keenan & Comrie’s (1977) Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. In this paper, Relativization Strategies of Sasak Ngeno-Ngene Dialect in Lombok is presented with the aims are (1) describing the ability of these relations in direct relativization, (2) analyzing the strategies used when indirect relativization occurs, and (3) formulating the right orderings of these relations in the hierarchy. The data on relativization strategies were taken by elicitations, an interview with some informants and documentation of the previous related studies. Then, a careful analysis was made with reference to common linguistic typological approach. The results of this study showed that: (1) gap strategy underlines direct relativization for S (subject) of SVO, O (object) of OVS and OBL of destination, (2) case-coding strategy is preferred by OBL of locative, and (3) passivization strategy is suitable for all indirect relativizations for O (object) of SVO and OBL of benefactive, recipient, and instrumental. The hierarchy of nuclear and oblique relations were formulated: S (SVO) > O (OVS) > OBL (DES > LOC) in direct relativization. Conversely, the hierarchy of O (SVO) > OBL (BEN > RECIP > INST) is shown in indirect relativization.

The correspondence between sentence production and corpus frequencies in modifier attachment

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 879-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Desmet ◽  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
Constantijn De Baecke
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Attachment Preference ◽  
Attachment Sites ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Relative Clause Attachment

We examined the production of relative clauses in sentences with a complex noun phrase containing two possible attachment sites for the relative clause (e.g., “Someone shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony.”). On the basis of two corpus analyses and two sentence continuation tasks, we conclude that much research about this specific syntactic ambiguity has used complex noun phrases that are quite uncommon. These noun phrases involve the relationship between two humans and, at least in Dutch, induce a different attachment preference from noun phrases referring to non-human entities. We provide evidence that the use of this type of complex noun phrase may have distorted the conclusions about the processes underlying relative clause attachment. In addition, it is shown that, notwithstanding some notable differences between sentence production in the continuation task and in coherent text writing, there seems to be a remarkable correspondence between the attachment patterns obtained with both modes of production.

scholarly journals When relative clause extraposition is the right choice, it’s easier

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELAINE J. FRANCIS ◽  
LAURA A. MICHAELIS
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Sentential Context ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Conditional Preferences ◽  
The Right ◽  
Retrieval From Memory ◽  
Online Measures

abstractIn one type of Relative Clause Extraposition (RCE) in English, a subject-modifying relative clause occurs in a displaced position following the matrix VP, as in: Some options were considered that allow for more flexibility. Although RCE incurs a discontinuous dependency and is relatively infrequent in discourse, previous corpus and acceptability judgment studies have shown that speakers prefer RCE over adjacent ordering when the RC is long in relation to the VP, the subject NP is indefinite, and the main verb is passive/presentative (Francis, 2010; Francis & Michaelis, 2014; Walker, 2013). The current study is the first to relate these conditional preferences to online measures of production. For a spoken production task that required speakers to construct sentences based on visual cues, results showed that the same factors that modulate choice of structure – VP length, RC length, and definiteness of the subject NP – also modulate voice initiation time. That is, when the sentential context warrants a particular structure, that structure becomes easier to produce. Following the approach of MacDonald (2013), we explain these findings in terms of two production biases, one of which favors early placement of shorter, more accessible phrases and the other of which promotes rapid retrieval from memory of the most frequently used subtypes of a construction.

The difference between English restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses

1990 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Fabb
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Syntactic Relation ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship

A nonrestrictive relative clause (henceforth NRR) is shown in (I) and a restrictive relative clause (henceforth RR) in (2).(1) The swans, which are white, are in that part of the lake.(2) The swans which are white are in that part of the lake.Example (1) implies that all the swans under discussion are white. Example (2) implies that the white swans are being distinguished from some other not white swans which are also under discussion. There are many superficial differences between restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses; in this paper I show that there is no need for construction-specific stipulations which distinguish between them. The differences arise from the fact that the RR is a modifier, while the NRR is not, and in fact has no syntactic relation to its host/antecedent. Co-indexing (involving a referential index) between the relative clause and its antecedent is central to this account. I examine the requirement that a relative pronoun must have an antecedent, which in the case of a NRR is the sole manifestation of the relationship between the relative clause and its host), and suggest that this holds at a level of discourse structure.

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):

Relative clauses are barriers to wh-movement for young children

1995 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill De Villiers ◽  
Thomas Roeper
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
One Year

ABSTRACTTwo studies are described which investigate preschool children's sensitivity to relative clauses as barriers to the movement of wh-questions. The children were presented with short stories followed by questions in which the wh-word had two possible sites of interpretation, the ungrammatical option being inside a relative clause. A cross-sectional study with 23 children aged 3;1 to 6;1, and a longitudinal study over the course of one year with 12 children aged 3;1 to 4;1 at the start, found young children refused to extract wh-questions from the ungrammatical site inside a relative clause. This confirms other findings that children's early grammars are sensitive to universal constraints on movement. In addition, the children differentiated between wh-complements and relative clauses in their tendency to mistakenly answer the medial wh-complementizer but not the wh-relative pronoun. Explanations for the latter are framed in terms of children's initial assumptions about the attachment of complements.

scholarly journals English relative clauses in a cross-Germanic perspective

Nordlyd ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-115
Author(s):  
Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Case System ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Germanic Languages

The article talk examines the distribution of relativising strategies in English in a cross-Germanic perspective, arguing that English is quite unique among Germanic languages both regarding the number of available options and their distribution. The differences from other Germanic languages (both West Germanic and Scandinavian) are primarily due to the historical changes affecting the case and gender system in English more generally. The loss of case and gender on the original singular neuter relative pronoun facilitated its reanalysis as a complementiser. The effect of the case system can also be observed in properties that are not evidently related to case. Specifically, choice between the pronoun strategy and the complementiser strategy is known to show differences according to the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. While English shows a subject vs. oblique distinction in this respect, matching its nominative/oblique case system, German dialects show a subject/direct object vs. oblique distinction, matching the nominative/accusative/oblique case setting in the language. The particular setting in English is thus not dependent on e.g. a single parameter but on various factors that are otherwise present in other Germanic languages as well, and it is ultimately the complex interplay of these factors that results in the particular setup.

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