Case and preposition stranding in Old English free relatives

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia L. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Alternative Analysis ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Preposition Stranding ◽  
Made In

Abstract Taylor (2014) observes that some of the factual claims made in Allen (1980), the most thorough examination of free relatives in Old English to date, are not entirely correct. Taylor presents some examples that Allen’s analysis of Old English free relatives does not account for and proposes an alternative analysis in which the relative pronoun can be internal to the relative clause and the case of the pronoun is determined by the case hierarchy proposed by Harbert (2007) for Gothic. This corpus-based study supplies new data showing that while Taylor’s relative-internal analysis is needed for some examples, the evidence does not support the suggested case hierarchy except in regulating optional case attraction. Latin influence may account for examples that do not fit the usual patterns.

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.

Effects of Sentence Structure on Sentence Elicited Imitation Responses

1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 809-819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo Carol Hudgins ◽  
Walter L. Cullinan
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Female College Students ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Response Accuracy ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Elicited Imitation ◽  
Sentence Repetition ◽  
Repetition Task

This study investigates the effects of sentence structure on the number of error sentences and response latency in a sentence-repetition task. Forty female college students repeated short and long test sentences containing either a single self-embedded or right-branching subject-focus or object-focus relative clause. Sentences were also controlled for deletion of the relative pronoun of the relative clause. Sentence structure was found to affect sentence elicited imitation response accuracy and latency in a manner similar to the effects of structure on ease of comprehension. The findings are consistent with a canonical-sentoid strategy explanation of sentence processing during sentence imitation.

Again on relative clause and subordination in Latin

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Calboli
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Central Point ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Case Theory ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

AbstractI started from the relative clause which occurs in Hittite, and in particular with the enclitic position of the relative pronoun. This is connected with the OV position and this position seems to have been prevailing in Hittite and PIE. The syntactic structure usually employed in Hittite between different clauses is the parataxis. Nevertheless, also the hypotaxis begins to be employed and the best occasion to use it was the diptych as suggested by Haudry, though he didn't consider the most natural and usual diptych: the law, where the crime and the sanction build a natural diptych already in old Hittite. Then I used Justus' and Boley's discussion on the structure of Hittite sentence and found a similarity with Latin, namely the use of an animate subject as central point of a sentence. With verbs of action in ancient languages the subject was normally an animate being, whereas also inanimate subject is employed in modern languages. This seems to be the major difference between ancient and modern structure of a sentence, or, better to say, in Hittite and PIE the subject was an animate being and this persisted a long time, and remained as a tendency in Latin, while in following languages and in classical grammar the subject became a simple nominal “entity” to be predicated and precised with verb and other linguistic instruments. A glance has been cast also to pronouns and particles (sometimes linked together) as instruments of linking nominal variants of coordinate or subordinate clauses and to the development of demonstrative/deictic pronouns. Also in ancient case theory a prevailing position was assured to the nominative case, the case of the subject.

Danish non-specific free relatives

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Anne Bjerre
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Phrase Structure Grammar ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative

Within the Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) community, one part of the Base Hypothesis concerning free relatives proposed by Bresnan & Grimshaw (1978) has gained wide support, namely that free relatives are headed by the wh-phrase. The second part of the hypothesis is that the wh-phrase is base-generated, and this has not gained support. In this paper, we will consider a subset of free relative constructions, i.e. non-specific free relatives, and provide support for this second part, restated in HPSG terms as a claim that there is no filler–gap relation between a free relative pronoun filler and a gap in the sister clause of the free relative pronoun.

The relative pronoun strategy

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 997-1014
Author(s):  
Jeff Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
European Languages

Abstract The Relative Pronoun strategy is commonly used for relativization in European languages such as English – for example: The woman [ who won the lottery ] is my neighbour. In this strategy the head nominal (here the woman) is indicated inside the relative clause by a clause-initial pronominal element (the relative pronoun, here who). The Relative Pronoun strategy has been characterized as an exclusively European areal feature (e.g. Comrie 1998). This article describes this strategy in more detail, as well as previous accounts of its distribution, and goes on to demonstrate that the same strategy is also found in Nama, a Papuan language of southern New Guinea.

scholarly journals The Homiliary of Angers in tenth-century England

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 163-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winfried Rudolf
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
First Time ◽  
Made In

AbstractLatin manuscripts used for preaching the Anglo-Saxon laity in the tenth century survive in relatively rare numbers. This paper contributes a new text to the known preaching resources from that century in identifying the Homiliary of Angers as the text preserved on the flyleaves of London, British Library, MS Sloane 280. While these fragments, made in Kent and edited here for the first time, cast new light on the importance of this plain and unadorned Latin collection for the composition of Old English temporale homilies before Ælfric, they also represent the oldest surviving manuscript evidence of the text.

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 Analysis of Errors Made by Iraqi University Students in the Area of English Relativization System

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-115
Author(s):  
Abbas Naethel
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Error Analysis ◽  
University Students ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
The University ◽  
Made In ◽  
Learning English

This study aims at giving an account of an analysis of errors made by Iraqi university students in the area of English Relativization system. It focuses mainly on dealing with the investigation of the syntactic errors committed by Iraqi students in English relative clause. This causes a major problem for university students learning English as a foreign language. This comes from the students' interlingual and intralingual strategies. This also indicates that the university students seem to depend on the target language (TL) system rather than on that of the native language (NL). The technique used is an error analysis which Wilkins (1972) highlights its value in giving "greater understandings of the difficulties that learners face, and will perhaps assist in the development of pedagogic strategies." (p. 206). After analyzing and interpreting the errors made in the 100 students' compositions, some recommendations are given.

Headless Relative Clauses in Ch'ol

2021 ◽  
pp. 362-402
Author(s):  
Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez ◽  
Jessica Coon
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Relative Structure

This chapter surveys headless relative clauses in Ch’ol, a Mayan language spoken in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. Ch’ol is rare among Mayan languages in possessing a special morpheme found with relativized nouns, the second position clitic = bä. While this morpheme is required for relativized argument nouns, it is not present in free relatives, which suggests a different derivation for this class of construction. Maximal (definite) and existential (indefinite) free relatives are described. They both make use of a fronted wh-expression and lack the morpheme = bä. Maximal and existential free relatives in Ch’ol appear identical to one another in structure. Following existing studies on other languages, it is argued that the different interpretations of these clauses are a result of the environments in which they appear. Finally, Ch’ol has two different types of constructions in which a determiner element is followed by a headless relative: one corresponding to the = bä structure and one corresponding to the free relative structure. The former is proposed to be a regular headed relative clause with an unpronounced head, as has elsewhere been argued for Yucatec. The latter, on the other hand, corresponds to a free relative structure with an added determiner element.

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