scholarly journals On relative clauses and prosodic phrasing in Ciwandya

2011 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 121-139
Author(s):  
Al Mtenje
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Prosodic Phrase ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Restrictive Relatives

The interaction between Syntax and Phonology has been one area of interesting empirical research and theoretical debate in recent years, particularly the question of the extent to which syntactic structure influences phonological phrasing. It has generally been observed that the edges of the major syntactic constituents (XPs) tend to coincide with prosodic phrase boundaries thus resulting in XPs like subject NPs, object NPs, Topic NPs, VPs etc. forming separate phonological phrases. Within Optimality Theoretic (OT) accounts, this fact has been attributed to a number of well-motivated general alignment constraints. Studies on relative clauses in Bantu and other languages have significantly contributed to this area of research inquiry where a number of parametric variations have been observed with regard to prosodic phrasing. In some languages, XPs which are heads of relatives form separate phonological phrases while in others they phrase with the relative clauses. This paper makes a contribution to this topic by discussing the phrasing of relatives in Ciwandya (a Bantu language spoken in Malawi and Tanzania). It shows that XPs which are heads of restrictive relative clauses phrase with their relative verbs, regardless of whether they are subjects, objects or other adjuncts. A variety of syntactic constructions are used to illustrate this fact. The discussion also confirms what has been generally observed in other Bantu languages concerning restrictive relatives with clefts and non-restrictive relative clauses. In both cases, the heads of the relatives phrase separately. The paper adopts an OT analysis which has been well articulated and defended in Cheng & Downing (2007, 2010, to appear) Downing & Mtenje (2010, 2011) to account for these phenomena in Ciwandya.  

scholarly journals prosody of Símákonde relative clauses

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 159-185
Author(s):  
Sophie Manus
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Prosodic Phrase ◽  
Final Stress ◽  
The Relationship

Símákonde is an Eastern Bantu language (P23) spoken by immigrant Mozambican communities in Zanzibar and on the Tanzanian mainland. Like other Makonde dialects and other Eastern and Southern Bantu languages (Hyman 2009), it has lost the historical Proto-Bantu vowel length contrast and now has a regular phrase-final stress rule, which causes a predictable bimoraic lengthening of the penultimate syllable of every Prosodic Phrase. The study of the prosody / syntax interface in Símákonde Relative Clauses requires to take into account the following elements: the relationship between the head and the relative verb, the conjoint / disjoint verbal distinction and the various phrasing patterns of Noun Phrases. Within Símákonde noun phrases, depending on the nature of the modifier, three different phrasing situations are observed: a modifier or modifiers may (i) be required to phrase with the head noun, (ii) be required to phrase separately, or (iii) optionally phrase with the head noun.  

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 prosody of Shingazidja relatives

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 187-209
Author(s):  
Cédric Patin
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Prosodic Phrase ◽  
Final Stress ◽  
The Relationship

Símákonde is an Eastern Bantu language (P23) spoken by immigrant Mozambican communities in Zanzibar and on the Tanzanian mainland. Like other Makonde dialects and other Eastern and Southern Bantu languages (Hyman 2009), it has lost the historical Proto-Bantu vowel length contrast and now has a regular phrase-final stress rule, which causes a predictable bimoraic lengthening of the penultimate syllable of every Prosodic Phrase. The study of the prosody / syntax interface in Símákonde Relative Clauses requires to take into account the following elements: the relationship between the head and the relative verb, the conjoint / disjoint verbal distinction and the various phrasing patterns of Noun Phrases. Within Símákonde noun phrases, depending on the nature of the modifier, three different phrasing situations are observed: a modifier or modifiers may (i) be required to phrase with the head noun, (ii) be required to phrase separately, or (iii) optionally phrase with the head noun.  

Non-restrictive relatives are not orphans

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
DOUG ARNOLD
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Representation ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Restrictive Relatives

According to a ‘radical orphanage’ approach, non-restrictive relative clauses are not part of the syntactic representation of the sentence that contains them. It is an appealing view, and seems to capture some important properties of non-restrictive relative clauses. Focusing mainly on empirical shortcomings, this paper aims to show that the appeal of such approaches is illusory. It also outlines an empirically superior ‘syntactically integrated’ account.

scholarly journals Non-restrictive relative clauses in Arabic

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Abdulrahman A Alqurashi
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Restrictive Relatives ◽  
Modern Standard ◽  
Minimalist Syntax

This paper discusses the syntax of non-restrictive relative clauses in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It provides a thorough description of their structures and attempts to offer a preliminary analysis within the transformation framework: Minimalist syntax. Two relativization strategies are available for Arabic non-restrictive relative clauses. The first strategy is similar to that of definite restrictive relatives in which the relative clause is initiated by ʔallaðiwhich is a relative complementizer, whereas the second strategy is a unique one in which the relative clause is initiated by the special particle wa, appears to be a specifying coordinator, along with the complementizer ʔallaði. The paper also argues that De-Vries’s (2006) coordinate approach to appositive relatives can provide a straightforward account for some the facts of non-restrictive relative clauses in Arabic.

Supplemental relative clauses: Internal and external syntax

2012 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUSSELL LEE-GOLDMAN
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Linear Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Order Constraints ◽  
Syntactic Constraints ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses

The internal syntactic structures of restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses are largely identical. This paper argues that despite a uniform internal structure, the external distributions – specifically, linearization with respect to the head – of non-restrictive relative clauses are subject to several conditions. In particular, sentential non-restrictive relative clauses with which and what can appear to the left of their heads in limited (and distinct) syntactic contexts. These lexical and syntactic constraints are represented within the framework of Sign-based Construction Grammar. In light of these observations, the paper revisits claims about the internal structure of parenthetical as-clauses. Prior claims that as cannot be a relativizer are shown to be unfounded, and new data are presented in favor of treating them as relative clauses with the external distribution of sentential adverbials. This is possible given the ability to state separately specifications of construction-internal syntactic structure and construction-external linear-order constraints.

scholarly journals Definiteness in Chiyao

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Julius Taji
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Audio Recording ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
North Western

The aim of this paper is to examine the linguistic devices used to express definiteness in Chiyao, a Bantu language of Southern Tanzania, Southern Malawi, and north-western Mozambique. The analysis is guided by the familiarity theory of definiteness, and is based on the data collected through audio-recording of traditional narratives which were later transcribed to identify utterances with definite NPs. Findings establish three main strategies of signalling definiteness in the language, which include morphological, morphosyntactic, and use of bare nouns. The morphological indicators of definiteness include subject and object markers while the morphosyntactic indicators include demonstratives, locative particles, possessive determiners, genitive expressions, and relative clauses. Bare definiteness is mainly expressed by nouns of inalienable possession, including those denoting body parts and family relations. These findings enrich the existing literature on definiteness in Bantu languages and inform future typological and comparative studies on this subject.

scholarly journals The Syntax of Appositive Relativization: On Specifying Coordination, False Free Relatives, and Promotion

2006 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses ◽  
Internal Syntax ◽  
Restrictive Relatives

Appositive relative clauses differ in some essential respects from restrictive relative clauses. I argue that appositive relatives and appositions can be put together as a third class of coordination denoting specification. Thus, an appositive relative is a specifying conjunct to the visible antecedent. It is a semifree relative with a pronominal head that is normally empty. Therefore, its internal syntax is equivalent to that of restrictive relatives; hence, there is one syntax for both types of relative clauses. In essence, it is the context of specifying coordination that accounts for the different behavior of appositive relatives. In the light of this analysis, the properties of appositive relatives (as opposed to restrictive relatives) are systematically reviewed.

scholarly journals Processus de relativisation en bàsàa: de la syntaxe à la prosodie

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 145-158
Author(s):  
Emmanuel-Moselly Makasso
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Phrase Boundary ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Restrictive Relatives ◽  
Relative Pronouns

Cet article propose une réflexion sur la manière dont la langue bàsàa (Bantu A 43 parlée au Cameroun) exprime la relativisation. En l’absence d’une classe grammaticale de pronoms relatifs la langue utilise la classe des démonstratifs. La stratégie démonstrative mise en place peut selon les cas, associer la classe des locatifs pour déterminer les degrés de définitude. La langue distingue également les relatives restrictives des relatives non-restrictives qui sont soit descriptives, soit emphatiques. Du point de vue prosodique, la fin de la relative en bàsàa coïncide avec une finale de Groupe Intonatif. This article provides a sketch of the morphosyntax and prosody of relative clauses in Bàsàa, a Bantu language (A 43) spoken in Cameroon. The language does not have a class of relative pronouns like French or English. Rather, the language borrows from the demonstrative class to form relatives. Also, the language can involve locatives in the demonstrative strategy to express relative definiteness. Two varieties of relatives can be found in Bàsàa: restrictive relatives and non-restrictive relatives, which can be descriptive or emphatic. Prosodically, we find an Intonational Phrase boundary at the end of the relative clause.

scholarly journals The forgotten structure of Ikalanga relatives

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
Rose Letsholo
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
It Projects ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Parametric Variation ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
The Subject

Demuth and Harford (1999) contend that in Bantu relatives, the verb raises from I-C if the relative morpheme is a bound morpheme while the subject remains in spec-IP resulting in subject –verb inversion. Ikalanga, a Bantu language spoken in Botswana has no subject verb inversion in relatives although the relative morpheme appears to be a bound morpheme. This observation challenges the conclusion reached in Demuth and Harford (1999). This raises the question, What then is the structure of the relative clause in languages like Ikalanga and Luganda? This paper argues that Ikalanga relative clauses differ from other Bantu relative clauses in that the projection that houses the relative feature (RelP) projects below TP while in Bantu languages where subject verb inversion is observed such as Shona it projects higher than TP. Thus, the variation in the structures of Bantu relative clauses can be accounted for if we understand that there is a parametric variation in the position in which RelP projects; lower than TP or higher than TP.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document