scholarly journals Appendix: relative clause questionnaire

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 243-250
Author(s):  
N. N.
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Grammatical Functions

This questionnaire is intended as an aid to eliciting different relative clause types – restrictive, non-restrictive, free, cleft. We have taken care to include examples where the head plays a variety of grammatical functions in the relative clause (subject, object, indirect object, possessor, adjunct). We have also taken care to include examples where the relative clause is in different positions in the sentence: initial, medial and extraposed. The questionnaire is intended as a guide, only, as every language will have its own set of possibilities and complications. At the end of the questionnaire is a checklist, as well as some illustrative examples in English and Swahili of the basic relative clause types. While we had Bantu languages in mind in devising the questionnaire, we hope it could also be useful to linguists with an interest in other languages.  

Indirect objects in Siswati

1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-326
Author(s):  
Videa P. De Guzman
Keyword(s):  
Object Relations ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Object Properties ◽  
Relational Grammar ◽  
Ditransitive Constructions

Contrary to the view that in Bantu languages the two unmarked nominals following the verb in ditransitive constructions need not be distinguished because both possess the same object properties, this paper shows the necessity of making a distinction between the direct object and the indirect object relations. Evidence comes from SiSwati, the language of Swaziland, and the analysis of the data is cast in the Relational Grammar framework. The arguments presented refer to word order, object concord (or pronominal copy) and the interaction between object concord and some syntactic phenomena such as passivization, topicalization, relativization, and clefting. By distinguishing the direct object from the indirect object in Siswati, the grammar is able to provide a more natural account for a number of related double object constructions.

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.

scholarly journals Introduction

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Laura J. Downing ◽  
Annie Rialland ◽  
Cédric Patin ◽  
Kristina Riedel
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Direct Reference ◽  
Research Teams ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Cooperative Project ◽  
Phonological Phrase ◽  
Indirect Reference

The papers in this volume were originally presented at the Bantu Relative Clause workshop held in Paris on 8-9 January 2010, which was organized by the French-German cooperative project on the Phonology/Syntax Interface in Bantu Languages (BANTU PSYN). This project, which is funded by the ANR and the DFG, comprises three research teams, based in Berlin, Paris and Lyon. [...] This range of expertise is essential to realizing the goals of our project. Because Bantu languages have a rich phrasal phonology, they have played a central role in the development of theories of the phonology-syntax interface ever since the seminal work from the 1970s on Chimwiini (Kisseberth & Abasheikh 1974) and Haya (Byarushengo et al. 1976). Indeed, half the papers in Inkelas & Zec’s (1990) collection of papers on the phonology-syntax interface deal with Bantu languages. They have naturally played an important role in current debates comparing indirect and direct reference theories of the phonology-syntax interface. Indirect reference theories (e.g., Nespor & Vogel 1986; Selkirk 1986, 1995, 2000, 2009; Kanerva 1990; Truckenbrodt 1995, 1999, 2005, 2007) propose that phonology is not directly conditioned by syntactic information. Rather, the interface is mediated by phrasal prosodic constituents like Phonological Phrase and Intonation Phrase, which need not match any syntactic constituent. In contrast, direct reference theories (e.g., Kaisse 1985; Odden 1995, 1996; Pak 2008; Seidl 2001) argue that phrasal prosodic constituents are superfluous, as phonology can – indeed, must – refer directly to syntactic structure.  

Definitions as a window to the acquisition of relative clauses

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
NAAMA FRIEDMANN ◽  
DORIT ARAM ◽  
RAMA NOVOGRODSKY
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Grammatical Errors ◽  
Object Relative

ABSTRACTDefinitions that children provide can be a valuable measure of their syntax, and specifically, of their ability to produce relative clauses. This research explored the acquisition of subject, object, and indirect object relative clauses in 121 Hebrew-speaking children aged 3 years, 5 months to 8 years, 6 months (3;5–8;6). The children were asked to define 14 nouns, and their responses were collected and analyzed for various syntactic aspects. The main results were that children started using relative clauses in their definitions at age 3;8, and their use of relative clause increased consistently until they were 6 years old. Retesting 38 of the 6-year-olds at age 8;6 indicated no differences in several syntactic measures between their production of relative clauses at age 6 and 8;6, suggesting that the ability to produce relative clauses stabilizes around age 6. The participants made almost no grammatical errors at any of the ages, probably because they avoided the use of relative clauses when they had not mastered them yet. In the early stages participants produced mainly headless relatives, and with age the use of a relative head increased. The acquisition of relative clauses was not related to the ability to embed or to the ability to use pronouns: these abilities existed already in the youngest age group and remained constant throughout the age groups.

Asymmetries in children's production of relative clauses: data from English and Korean

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 1038-1071 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHAE-EUN KIM ◽  
WILLIAM O'GRADY
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Object Relative

ABSTRACTWe report here on a series of elicited production experiments that investigate the production of indirect object and oblique relative clauses by monolingual child learners of English and Korean. Taken together, the results from the two languages point toward a pair of robust asymmetries: children manifest a preference for subject relative clauses over indirect object relative clauses, and for direct object relative clauses over oblique relative clauses. We consider various possible explanations for these preferences, of which the most promising seems to involve the requirement that the referent of the head noun be easily construed as what the relative clause is about.

scholarly journals Papers from the workshop on Bantu relative clauses

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Laura Downing ◽  
Annie Rialland ◽  
Jean-Marc Beltzung ◽  
Sophie Manus ◽  
Cédric Patin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Western Uganda ◽  
Restrictive Relatives

All of the papers in the volume except one (Kaji) take up some aspect of relative clause construction in some Bantu language. Kaji’s paper aims to account for how Tooro (J12; western Uganda) lost phonological tone through a comparative study of the tone systems of other western Uganda Bantu languages. The other papers examine a range of ways of forming relative clauses, often including non-restrictive relatives and clefts, in a wide range of languages representing a variety of prosodic systems.  

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.

scholarly journals Usages grammaticaux du verbe -guma ‘rester’ en kirundi (JD62) : Une étude linguistique basée sur un corpus

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-40
Author(s):  
Manoah-Joël Misago ◽  
Epimaque Nshimirimana ◽  
Pascal Tuyubahe
Keyword(s):  
Oral Language ◽  
Statistical Distribution ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
General Meaning ◽  
Written Corpus ◽  
Grammatical Functions

In Bantu languages, verbs that have a general meaning can become grammaticalized. The purpose of this study is to show that in Kirundi (JD62), the variant spoken in Burundi, the stative verb -guma ‘to stay’ can appear in given morphosyntactic structures to contribute to the production of various grammatical semantics. This article, examines the different grammatical uses of -guma based on one corpus of Kirundi texts from BantUgent. According to corpus data three grammatical uses of the verb could be identified: continuity, regularity and gradual process. First of all, the verb -guma (used as an auxiliary) marks continuity depending on its conjugation and that of the main verb. Secondly, it marks a regularity of the action described by the main verb. Finally, it is used to mark a gradual process. These grammatical functions as well as the different forms of conjugation of -guma and the main verb do not have the same frequency in the written corpus and in the oral language. The statistical distribution shows that the use of -guma as a continuity marker is more frequent both in the written corpus and in oral language compared to regularity and gradual process.

Questions on transitivity

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerd Jendraschek
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Complex Predicates ◽  
Object Function ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Subject Category ◽  
Zero Anaphora ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
Focus Marking

This paper presents those areas of Iatmul morphosyntax that are relevant to a discussion of transitivity. Evidence for the syntactic status of subject and direct object as core arguments comes from S=O ambitransitive verbs, S/O pivots in complex predicates, switch reference, relative clause formation, agreement marking, and obligatory focus marking. In contrast, there is no evidence for the concept of an “indirect object”. Other relevant phenomena to be explored are case marking, verbs whose morphological make-up correlates with transitivity, zero anaphora, and coalescent nouns in complex predicates. In summary, if languages can be characterized by the extent to which they have grammaticalized the control cline between actor and undergoer, Iatmul can be located in the middle field, with a clear subject category, and a more variable direct object function, whose instantiation is primarily determined by semantic and pragmatic factors.

scholarly journals Split-antecedent relative clauses and the symmetry of predicates

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 253-270
Author(s):  
Claudia Poschmann ◽  
Sascha Bargmann ◽  
Christopher Götze ◽  
Anke Holler ◽  
Manfred Sailer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Coordinate Structure ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Grammatical Functions

This paper presents the results of two experiments in German testing the acceptabilityof (non-)restrictive relative clauses (NRCs/RRCs) with split antecedents (SpAs). Accordingto Moltmann (1992), SpAs are only grammatical if their parts occur within the conjuncts ofa coordinate structure and if they have identical grammatical functions. Non-conjoined SpAsthat form the subject and the object of a transitive verb are predicted to be ungrammatical. Ourstudy shows that the acceptability of such examples improves significantly if the predicate thatrelates the parts of the SpA is symmetric. Moreover, it suggests that NRCs and RRCs behavedifferently in these cases with respect to the SpA-construal. We can make sense of this observationif we follow Winter (2016) in assuming that transitive symmetric predicates have to beanalyzed as unary collective predicates and thus provide a collective antecedent for the RC atthe semantic (not the syntactic) level. As we will argue, this accounts for some of the disagreementwe found in the literature and gives us new insights into both the semantics of symmetricpredicates and the semantics of NRCs.Keywords: non-restrictive relative clause, restrictive relative clause, symmetric predicate, splitantecedent.

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