Uses and Roles of the Relative Pronouns

This reference grammar of Gothic includes much history along with a description of Gothic grammar. Apart from runic inscriptions, Gothic is the earliest attested language of the Germanic family in Indo-European. Specifically, it is East Germanic. Most of the extant Gothic corpus is a 4th-century translation of the Bible, traditionally ascribed to Wulfila. This translation is historically important because it antedates Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. Gothic inflectional categories include nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Nouns are inflected for three genders, two numbers, and four cases. Adjectives also have weak and strong forms, as do verbs. Verbs are inflected for three persons and numbers, indicative and nonindicative mood (here called optative), past and nonpast tense, and voice. The mediopassive survives as a synthetic passive and syntactically in innovated periphrastic formations. Middle and anticausative functions were taken over by simple reflexive structures. Nonfinite are the infinitive, the imperative, and two participles. Gothic was a null subject language. Aspect was effected primarily by prefixes, relativization by relative pronouns built on demonstratives plus a complementizer. Complementizers were the norm with subordinated verbs in the indicative or optative. Switch to the optative was triggered by irrealis (the unreal), matrix verbs that do not permit a full range of subordinate tenses (e.g. hopes, wishes), potentiality, and alternate worlds. Many of these are also relevant to matrix clauses (independent optatives). Essentials of linearization include prepositional phrases, default postposed genitives and possessive adjectives, and preposed demonstratives. Verb-object order predominates, but there is considerable variation. Verb-auxiliary order is native Gothic.

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West Caucasian relative pronouns as resumptives

Linguistics ◽

10.1515/ling-2020-2003 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Yury Lander ◽

Michael Daniel

Keyword(s):

Relative Pronouns

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Proto-Indo-European verb-finality

Journal of Historical Linguistics ◽

10.1075/jhl.3.1.04hoc ◽

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.

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Cyclicity and Connectivity in Nez Perce Relative Clauses

Linguistic Inquiry ◽

10.1162/ling_a_00218 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 47 (3) ◽

pp. 427-470 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

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.

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Een onderwerp wat onderzoek behoeft : N.a.v. De Schutter & Kloots 2000

Nederlandse taalkunde ◽

10.5117/nedtaa2020.2-3.019.rutt ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 363-369

Author(s):

Gijsbert Rutten

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Future Research ◽

Relative Pronouns

Abstract A subject what needs research. Revisiting De Schutter & Kloots 2000De Schutter & Kloots (2000) present an explorative analysis of the use of relative pronouns and relative adverbs in seventeenth-century literary Dutch, when w-forms are gradually replacing d-forms. They argue that the incoming w-forms were informal compared to the older d-forms. In the present paper, however, it is argued that recent historical-sociolinguistic research suggests that the new w-forms represented a change from above, and thus did not index informality. More research into changes in relativization is needed, and some suggestions for future research are given at the end of the paper.

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