Cyclic changes in Hungarian relative clauses

2021 ◽  
pp. 40-63
Author(s):  
Julia Bacskai-Atkari ◽  
Éva Dékány
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Feature Change ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Cyclic Changes ◽  
Relative Pronouns

Relative operators stem from demonstratives or from wh-operators and may subsequently be reanalyzed as complementizers. In Hungarian, unlike English, the reanalysis of wh-operators into relative operators preceded the reanalysis of the matrix demonstrative pronoun, and the demonstrative was reanalyzed into [Spec,CP] via cliticization onto the wh-based relative pronoun, rendering morphologically complex relative pronouns. This change was enabled by environments in which a morphologically unmarked (singular, nominative) matrix demonstrative was immediately followed by a relative operator. The demonstrative was subsequently renewed in the main clause. We argue that this had two important prerequisites. First, the original wh-based relative operator did not lose its lexical features and was not grammaticalized into a functional head. Second, the matrix demonstrative lost its original definiteness feature, [+def], and became unspecified for this feature. Ultimately, it is this feature change that brought about the emergence of a new morphosyntactic paradigm, in line with the Borer-Chomsky Conjecture.

Subordinate clauses

2019 ◽  
pp. 237-288
Author(s):  
Jan Terje Faarlund
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Infinitival Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb ◽  
Nominal Clauses

In subordinate clauses, the C position is occupied by a complementizer word, which may be null. The finite verb stays in V. SpecCP is either empty or occupied by a wh-word, or by some other element indicating its semantic function. Nominal clauses are finite or non-finite. Finite nominal clauses are declarative or interrogative. Declarative nominal clauses may under specific circumstances have main clause word order (‘embedded V2’). Infinitival clauses are marked by an infinitive marker, which is either in C (Swedish), or immediately above V (Danish). Norwegian has both options. Relative clauses comprise several different types; clauses with a relativized nominal argument are mostly introduced by a complementizer; adverbial relative clauses relativize a locative or temporal phrase, with or without a complementizer; comparative clauses relativize a degree or identity. Under hard-to-define circumstances depending on language and region, subordinate clauses allow extraction of phrases up into the matrix clause.

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.

Gothic Relative Clauses Introduced by and Revisited

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Elena Afros
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The Other ◽  
Symmetric System ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Relative Pronouns

The Gothic invariant relativizers and have been analyzed in different ways. Von der Gabelentz and Loebe (1836/1846), Harbert (1992), Klinghardt (1877), and Streitberg (1910) treated and as indeclinable relative particles. Musić (1929) and Wright (1954), on the other hand, regarded them as relative pronouns. The present study shows that in the attested Gothic, and do not form a symmetric system with the opposition of gender. In addition, and appear to lack the grammatical categories of number and case applicable to the pronominal relativizers in Gothic and therefore cannot be classified as pronouns. Significantly, the elements and are reserved for certain types of antecedents and constructions, which might indicate that diachronically, they might have been in complementary distribution with relative pronouns, as suggested by Delbrück (1909). Synchronically, however, it is impossible to account for overlapping distribution of the relativizers and , the relative pronoun based on the demonstrative, and the complementizers and .

scholarly journals relative clause and its tones in Tswana

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 227-242
Author(s):  
Sabine Zerbian
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun ◽  
Current Article

The morpho-syntax of relative clauses in Sotho-Tswana is relatively well-described in the literature. Prosodic characteristics, such as tone, have received far less attention in the existing descriptions. After reviewing the basic morpho-syntactic and semantic features of relative clauses in Tswana, the current paper sets out to present and discuss prosodic aspects. These comprise tone specifications of relative clause markers such as the demonstrative pronoun that acts as the relative pronoun, relative agreement concords and the relative suffix. Further prosodic aspects dealt with in the current article are tone alternations at the juncture of relative pronoun and head noun, and finally the tone patterns of the finite verbs in the relative clause. The article aims at providing the descriptive basis from which to arrive at generalizations concerning the prosodic phrasing of relative clauses in Tswana.  

West Caucasian relative pronouns as resumptives

Linguistics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 1239-1270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yury Lander ◽  
Michael Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Resumptive Pronouns ◽  
Reflexive Pronouns ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Cross Reference ◽  
Relative Pronouns ◽  
Verbal Complex

Abstract In polysynthetic West Caucasian languages, the morphological verbal complex amounts to a clause with all kinds of participants cross-referenced by affixes. Relativization is performed by introducing a relative affix in the cross-reference slot that corresponds to the relativized participant. However, these languages display several crosslinguistically rare features of relativization. Firstly, while under the view of the verbal complex as a clause this affix appears to be a relative pronoun, it is an unusual relative pronoun because it remains in situ. Secondly, relative affixes may appear several times in the same clause. Thirdly, relative pronouns are not expected to occur in languages with prenominal relative clauses. Fourthly, in the Circassian branch, relative pronouns are identical to reflexive pronouns. These features are explained by considering relative prefixes to be resumptive pronouns. This interpretation finds a parallel in the neighboring East Caucasian languages, where reflexive pronouns also show resumptive usages. Finally, since in some West Caucasian languages the relative affix is a morpheme with a dedicated relative function but still shows properties of a resumptive pronoun, our data suggest that the distinction between relative pronouns and resumptive pronouns may not be as clear as is usually assumed.

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.

Pied-piping in Russian relative clauses: A microdiachronic analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Olga Pekelis
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Linear Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Structure Patterns

This paper presents an analysis of the pied-piping phenomenon in Russian relative clauses in the 18th–19th centuries and in present-day Russian. As is well-known, the relative pronoun kotoryj ‘which’ tended to precede its pied-piped head in the 18th–19th centuries and tends to follow it today. This difference, which has mainly been investigated for relativization on genitives, is demonstrated to be valid for a number of heterogeneous syntactic contexts. I propose to account for the syntactic shift undergone by the Russian relative clauses since the 19th century in terms of a more general shift in information structure: I argue that the linear order of the relative pronoun and its head that was acceptable in Russian two centuries ago, is now in contradiction with the modern inventory of felicitous information structure patterns.

SUBORDINATE AND MATRIX SYNONYMIC INFINITIVE UTTERANCES IN FRENCH FICTION OF THE XX – XXI CENTURIES

2021 ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Anastasiia LEPETIUKHA
Keyword(s):  
Communicative Intention ◽  
Inverse Reconstruction ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun ◽  
Structural Types ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Terminal Chain

In this article subordinate and matrix infinitive utterances are defined as one-basis (with one transformational terminal chain) and two-basis (with two or more transformational terminal chains) synonymic transforms of the virtual (linguistic) primary propositionnal structure with the concessive, temporal, causal, final, hypothetical semantic meanings. They are actualized in the form of preferential options-compressed, extended or quantitatively equacomponential discourse innovations with the explicit predicate and the implicit actant coreferent or non-coreferent with the actant of the matrix utterance according to the communicative intention or the idiostyle of the author. Different semantic-structural types of subordinate infinitive utterances, the matrix infinitive utterances containing the verb savoir, the specific extended polypredicative constructions (with the extender-demonstrative pronoun) and the quantitatively equacomponential structures with the initial infinitive are distinguished. The inverse reconstruction (discourse → language) of the virtual transformational processes is carried out in order to identify all the members of the virtual synonymic chains. It is proved that the procedure of the inverse reconstruction and the identification of the primary proposition are impossible in case of the insufficience of the expression. The “alternativeˮ linguistic experiment allows for justifying the co(n)textual (linguistic and situational) pertinence of the analyzed synonymic preferential options and determining the author’s idiostylistic peculiarities.

scholarly journals On the correlative nature of Hungarian left-peripheral relatives

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-313
Author(s):  
Anikó Lipták
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
The Right

This paper takes a close look at the properties of Hungarian relative clauses that occur in the left periphery of the main clause, preceding a (pro)nominal associate. It will be shown that these left-peripheral relative clauses differ in many ways from relative clauses dislocated on the right periphery, as well as from relative clauses embedded under a (pro)nominal head. To capture the precise syntax of these left-peripheral clauses, these will be compared to ordinary left-dislocated items, with which they have some properties in common. Despite the surface similarities between the two, however, there are a few decisive aspects of behaviour, most notably, distributional properties and connectivity effects, which argue against taking left-peripheral relatives as cases of clausal left-dislocates in Hungarian. Instead, one is led to consider these as correlative clauses, on the basis of the properties they share with well-established correlatives in languages like Hindi.  

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