Proto-Indo-European verb-finality

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-76
Author(s):  
Hans Henrich Hock
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronouns

Although the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European as verb-final is widely accepted, there continue to be dissenting opinions (e.g. Friedrich 1975). See e.g. Pires & Thomason (2008), who question the fruitfulness of Indo-European syntactic reconstruction. In this article I address two issues: First, the reconstructable subordination strategies, including relative-correlative structures, are perfectly in conformity with verb-final typology — pace Lehmann (1974) and Friedrich (1975) who considered relative clauses with finite verbs and relative pronouns incompatible with SOV. Second, verb-final reconstruction makes it possible to account for prosodic and segmental changes that single out finite verbs, such as the non-accentuation of Vedic finite verbs and i-apocope preferentially targeting finite verbs in Italic, Celtic, and Baltic-Slavic. Both developments find a natural, prosodically motivated explanation if we accept PIE as SOV, but not if we do not accept that reconstruction. These facts show that, pace Pires & Thomason (2008), the reconstruction of PIE as verb-final is a fruitful hypothesis.

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.

scholarly journals French subject island? Empirical studies of dont and de qui

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Abeillé ◽  
Elodie Winckel
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
First Century ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Recent Innovation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Relative Pronouns

AbstractDont has been claimed to be an exception to the ‘subject island’ constraint (Tellier, 1991; Sportiche and Bellier, 1989; Heck, 2009) and to contrast with true relative pronouns such as de qui. We provide corpus data from a literary corpus (Frantext), which show that relativizing out of the subject is possible with dont and de qui in French relative clauses, and is even the most frequent use of both relative clauses. We show that it is not a recent innovation by comparing subcorpora from the beginning of the twentieth century and from the beginning of the twenty-first century. We also show, with an acceptability judgement task, that extraction out of the subject with de qui is well accepted. Why has this possibility been overlooked? We suggest that it may be because de qui relatives in general are less frequent than dont relatives (about 60 times less in our corpus). Turning to de qui interrogatives, we show that extraction out of the subject is not attested, and propose an explanation of the contrast with relative clauses. We conclude that in this respect, French does not seem to differ from other Romance languages.

scholarly journals REFERENTIALITY IN NOUN PHRASES AND RELATIVE PRONOUNS

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Chiaki Kumamoto
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronouns

This paper examines the use of who and which with human antecedents in non-restrictive relative clauses. Apart from the cases where the antecedent is a property NP, the contexts that require which are claimed to be those where the antecedent is a non-specifi c NP (Kuno 1970, Declerck 1991). However, the use of which is not limited to these cases. Moreover, there are cases where which is not allowed even though the antecedent is a non-specifi c NP. I will argue that in order to fully account for the choice between who and which, it is crucial to consider not only the referentiality and the specifi city of the antecedent NP but also the semantic function that the relative pronoun plays in the clause, specifi cally, whether it is a referential NP, a property NP, or an NP involving a variable.

Relative pronouns and relative clauses

Arabic ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 275-285
Author(s):  
Faruk Abu-Chacra
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronouns

Headless Relative Clauses in San Pedro Mixtepec Zapotec

2021 ◽  
pp. 221-259
Author(s):  
Pafnuncio Antonio-Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
San Pedro ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Relative Pronouns

Headless relative clauses are investigated in the Zapotec variety spoken in San Pedro Mixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. Two related constructions are briefly introduced as well: wh- interrogative clauses and headed relative clauses. San Pedro Mixtepec Zapotec is shown to possess the three main kinds of free relative clauses that are attested crosslinguistically, each of which is distinguished by syntactic, morphological, and semantic properties: maximal, existential, and free-choice free relative clauses. The language also has two other kinds of headless relative clauses: light-headed relative clauses introduced by pronominals, and headless relative clauses introduced by relative pronouns.

scholarly journals Relative Clauses in Vartashen Udi Preliminary Remarks

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 207-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jost Gippert
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Elicitation Methods ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Preliminary Account ◽  
Relative Pronouns ◽  
Written Sources

AbstractThe article provides a preliminary account of the structure of relative clauses in Udi, an endangered language of the Caucasus. Based upon written sources, mostly from Tsarist times, and audiovisual materials collected in a documentation project, it addresses the formation and use of relative pronouns that are built upon either interrogative or demonstrative stems. The main focus is on the question whether the latter type of relative pronouns can be regarded as a "sprachwirkliches" feature of spoken Udi; it is argued that further fieldwork with specific elicitation methods is necessary to give a reliable answer.

scholarly journals A Study of types and core constituents of Acehnese relative clauses

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 397-410
Author(s):  
Denni Iskandar ◽  
Mulyadi Mulyadi ◽  
Khairina Nasution ◽  
Ridwan Hanafiah
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Relative Pronouns ◽  
Chinese Mandarin

This research aims to determine and explain the types and the core constituents of Acehnese relative clauses which so far have not been thoroughly discussed. To collect data for this study, a direct elicitation technique is used, and the data is then analyzed through a qualitative descriptive technique. The results showed that the relative clauses in Acehnese were clauses embedded as modifiers of noun phrases. Similar to the relative clauses’ theory proposed by experts in the Acehnese, there are five types of relative clauses: relativization of subject, relativization of predicate, relativization of object, relativization of possessive, and relativization of noun. Relative clauses in Acehnese are formed by connecting core nouns and relative clauses through the connecting word ‘nyang’, except for the relative clause of the predicate element through the ellipsis of the predicate element. The basic structure of the Acehnese relative clauses is the arrangement of the main constituents preceding (postnominal) the relative clauses. The constituents that described the relative clauses could form words or phrases depending on the reference to the meaning of the relative clauses. In the Acehnese, the following elements do not exist: (1) relative clauses that can be reduced by adverbials such as in English, (2) relative pronouns as in German and relative particles such as in Chinese Mandarin; and (3) the attachment of relative suffixes to verbs as in Korean.

scholarly journals RELATIVE CLAUSES FROM ENGLISH TO ALBANIAN

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 385-391
Author(s):  
Suela Koça ◽  
Vasilika Pojani
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
George Orwell ◽  
Pride And Prejudice ◽  
Theoretical Part ◽  
Animal Farm ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
Relative Pronouns ◽  
The Way

This paper aims to describe the use of relative clauses in English and Albanian by comparing different clause types. Some theoretical issues addressed in this article include the definition of relative clauses, the relativized elements, and the use of relative pronouns and adverbs in both languages. Distinctions and similarities are identified by analyzing the way in which these clauses are translated from English into Albanian. The theoretical part is illustrated by examples extracted from “Animal Farm” by George Orwell and “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austin, and their translated versions in Albanian, “Ferma e Kafshëve” and “Krenari dhe Paragjykime”.

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