Testing the effect of an arbitrary subject pronoun on relative clause comprehension: a study with Hebrew-speaking children

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 959-980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yair HAENDLER ◽  
Flavia ADANI
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Specific Effect ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
Discourse Pragmatics

AbstractPrevious studies have found that Hebrew-speaking children accurately comprehend object relatives (OR) with an embedded non-referential arbitrary subject pronoun (ASP). The facilitation of ORs with embedded pronouns is expected both from a discourse-pragmatics perspective and within a syntax-based locality approach. However, the specific effect of ASP might also be driven by a mismatch in grammatical features between the head noun and the pronoun, or by its relatively undemanding referential properties. We tested these possibilities by comparing ORs whose embedded subject is either ASP, a referential pronoun, or a lexical noun phrase. In all conditions, grammatical features were controlled. In a referent-identification task, the matching features made ORs with embedded pronouns difficult for five-year-olds. Accuracy was particularly low when the embedded pronoun was referential. These results indicate that embedded pronouns do not facilitate ORs across the board, and that the referential properties of pronouns affect OR processing.

scholarly journals Internally-Headed Relative Clauses in Hakha Chin

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefon M Flego
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Embedded Clause

Hakha Chin, an underdocumented Tibeto-Burman language, is reported to have internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs), a typologically rare syntactic structure in which the head noun phrase surfaces within the relative clause itself. The current study provides new data and novel observations which bear on several outstanding questions about IHRCs in this language: 1) Relativization of locative and instrumental adjuncts in IHRCs is avoided. 2) Conflicting stem allomorph requirements of negation and relativization of non-subjects give rise to optionality in stem choice when the two are brought together in an IHRC. 3) To relativize an indirect object, an IHRC is either avoided altogether, or the noun phrase is fronted to the absolute left-most position in the embedded clause. 4) Relativization of NPs with a human referent in an IHRC exhibit relativizer gender agreement, which has not been previously reported for this clause type in Hakha Chin.

Anaphor reconstruction in Japanese relative clauses

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunchuan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Binding Analysis ◽  
Truth Value

Abstract This study conducted two experiments to examine the derivation of the head noun phrase in Japanese relative clauses, with a focus on whether the anaphors jibun ‘self’ and jibun-jishin ‘self-self’ within the head noun phrase can be co-referential with the relative clause subject. It aims to settle a long-standing debate among the previous studies concerning the interpretation of the anaphors inside the head noun phrase: while several studies claimed that the co-reference between the anaphor jibun ‘self’ and the relative clause subject is prohibited, many other studies argued that such co-reference is possible. In addition, it has been claimed that while co-indexing the anaphor jibun with the relative clause subject might be marginally acceptable, it would become fully acceptable if we replace jibun with the morphologically complex anaphor jibun-jishin ‘self-self’, which implies that the morphological make-up of an anaphor may affect its ability to be co-indexed with the relative clause subject. The results of two carefully controlled truth value judgment experiments show that neither the simplex anaphor jibun nor the complex anaphor jibun-jishin within the head noun phrase of relative clauses can take the relative clause subject as its antecedent, which suggests that the head noun phrase does not reconstruct and therefore lends support to the pro-binding analysis of Japanese relative clauses. Moreover, the findings also suggest that the morphological make-up of an anaphor does not affect its ability to take the relative clause subject as its antecedent, despite the claim that it is more acceptable to co-index the complex anaphor jibun-jishin with the relative clause subject than the simplex anaphor jibun.

scholarly journals Case Markers in Mongolian: A Means for Encoding Null Constituents in Noun Phrase and Relative Clause

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Tseden Otgonsuren
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Early Observation ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
Case Markers

This paper focuses on the capacity of the case markers in the Mongolian language, as a relative element, to generate any finite noun phrase or relative clause based on their syntactic function or relationship. In Mongolian, there are two different approaches to generate noun phrases: parataxis and hypotaxis. According to my early observation, if the noun phrase generated through the parataxis, is the complement of the postpositional phrase, the head word of the relevant noun phrase can be truncated. In other words, since this head noun is governed by case marker in its null form to generate the postpositional phrase, the head noun can be encoded.  The second approach generates two different types of noun phrases in their structures: free structured and non-free structured noun phrases. Of them, the free structured noun phrase allows any syntactic transformations in their internal structure based on the senses of the case markers which denote a relation. That is to say, the null constituents in this type of noun phrases can be encoded to generate an extended alternative of the noun phrase and a relative clause.    

scholarly journals Noun phrase in Enets

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Andrey Shluinsky
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Noun Number ◽  
Linear Recursion ◽  
Number Form

The paper presents a corpus-based description of the noun phrase structure in Enets dealing with both Enets dialects – Forest Enets and Tundra Enets. An Enets noun phrase has six slots for modifiers: determiner, relative clause, possessor NP, numeral, adjective phrase, apposed NP. Determiners, relative clauses, and adjective phrases are subject to linear recursion, other modifiers are not. All modifiers precede the head NP. In Enets, there is no agreement between head noun and modifiers, but numerals have different patterns in the choice of head noun number form. Kokkuvõte. Andrej Šluinski: Noomenifraas eenetsi keeles. Artikkel esitab korpuspõhise kirjelduse eenetsi keele noomenifraasi struktuurist mõlemas eenetsi keele murdes – metsaeenetsi ja tundraeenetsi. Eenetsi noomenifraasil on kuus täiendikohta: määratleja, relatiivlause, omajat väljendav NP, numeraal, omadussõnafraas, appositsiooniline NP. Määratlejad, relatiivlaused ja omadussõnafraasid alluvad lineaarsele rekursioonile, teised täiendid mitte. Kõik täiendid eelnevad põhisõnale. Eenetsi keeles puudub põhisõna ja täiendi ühilduvus, kui numeraalid nõuavad noomenifraasi põhisõnalt erinevaid arvuvorme. Аннотация. Андрей Шлуинский: Именная группа в энецком языке. В статье представлено выполненное на материале корпуса текстов описание структуры именной группы в обоих диалектах энецкого языка – лесном тундровом. Энецкая именная группа содержит шесть позиций для модификаторов вершинного существительного: детерминатор, относительное предложение, именная группа посессора, числительное, группа прилагательного, соположенная именная группа. Детерминаторы, относительные предложения и группы прилагательного подлежат линейной рекурсии, в отличие от других модификаторов. Все модификаторы предшествуют вершинному существительному. В энецком языке отсутствует согласование между вершинным существительным и модификаторами, но представлены разные модели выбора числовой формы вершинного существительного в именных группах с числительными.

Acquisition of Japanese relative clauses by L1 Chinese learners: Evidence from reflexive pronoun resolution

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832097850
Author(s):  
Yunchuan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Syntactic Knowledge ◽  
Reflexive Pronoun ◽  
Functional Representation ◽  
Chinese Learners

This article investigates whether first-language (L1) Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese as a second language (L2) can acquire the knowledge that the reflexive pronoun jibun ‘self’ within the head noun phrase of Japanese relative clauses cannot refer to the relative clause subject. Successful acquisition would suggest that learners are able to acquire the underlying syntactic knowledge that the head noun phrase of Japanese relative clauses is base-generated external to the relative clause. A truth value judgment experiment was conducted and the findings suggest that L1 Chinese learners can indeed acquire the target syntactic knowledge in Japanese relative clauses, which argues against the Representational Deficit hypotheses and supports the Full Functional Representation hypotheses of L2 acquisition.

The relative verb forms of Cuwabo (Bantu P34) as contextually oriented participles

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-491
Author(s):  
Rozenn Guérois ◽  
Denis Creissels
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
The Subject ◽  
North Western

AbstractCuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some North-Western and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.

scholarly journals Cyclicity and Connectivity in Nez Perce Relative Clauses

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Rose Deal
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Intermediate Position ◽  
Nez Perce ◽  
The Core ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Relative Pronouns

This article studies two aspects of movement in relative clauses, focusing on evidence from Nez Perce. First, I argue that relativization involves cyclic Ā-movement, even in monoclausal relatives: the relative operator moves to Spec,CP via an intermediate position in an Ā outer specifier of TP. The core arguments draw on word order, complementizer choice, and a pattern of case attraction for relative pronouns. Ā cyclicity of this type suggests that the TP sister of relative C constitutes a phase—a result whose implications extend to an ill-understood corner of the English that-trace effect. Second, I argue that Nez Perce relativization provides new evidence for an ambiguity thesis for relative clauses, according to which some but not all relatives are derived by head raising. The argument comes from connectivity and anticonnectivity in morphological case. A crucial role is played by a pattern of inverse case attraction, wherein the head noun surfaces in a case determined internal to the relative clause. These new data complement the range of existing arguments concerning head raising, which draw primarily on connectivity effects at the syntax-semantics interface.

Noun modifiers and the n preposition in Siwi Berber (Egypt)

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-263
Author(s):  
Valentina Schiattarella
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Supplementary Data ◽  
Global Function ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
And Function

Abstract The three most common strategies used to modify a head noun, namely through a possessive, an adjective and a relative clause construction feature in Siwi the use of the preposition n. Its presence is obligatory in the possessive constructions, but only present before an adjective or a relative clause in some contexts, depending on the level of restriction that the speaker wants to place on the head noun. The aim of the article is to describe the use and function of n in all three contexts of noun modification in Siwi and present supplementary data that helps the understanding of the global function of this preposition.

How ‘person’ got into focus: Grammaticalization of clefts in Lingala and Kikongo areas

Linguistics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenneke van der Wal ◽  
Jacky Maniacky
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject

AbstractIn several Bantu languages in the regions where Kikongo and Lingala are spoken, we encounter sentences where the word ‘person’ can appear after the subject of a canonical SVO sentence, resulting in a focused interpretation of the subject. Synchronically, we analyze this as a monoclausal focus construction with moto ‘person’ as a focus marker. Diachronically, we argue, the construction derives from a biclausal cleft, where moto functioned as the head noun of the relative clause. This is a crosslinguistically rare but plausible development. The different languages studied in this paper show variation in the properties indicative of the status of the ‘moto construction’, which reflects the different stages of grammaticalization. Finally, we show how contact-induced grammaticalization is a likely factor in the development of moto as a focus marker.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document