ARGUMENT BAR MOVEMENT IN RELATIVE CLAUSES PRODUCED BY BIPA STUDENTS: AN ANALYSIS OF NOAM CHOMSKY’S GENERATIVE TRANSFORMATION

This study was intended to describe (1) the characteristics of the argument bar movement in relative clauses, (2) the characteristics of the relative clause structure, and (3) the suitability of the relative clause structure produced by BIPA students. This research was a qualitative descriptive case study. This research data were relative clauses sourced from BIPA students' speeches at the beginner and intermediate levels at the University of Muhammadiyah Malang. The data collection method used was the listening method with tapping, recording, note-taking, and hidden fishing techniques. Data analysis was carried out by identifying the predication-argument relationship with theta theory, identifying the deep structure and surface structure, analyzing movement objectives, movement traces, and movement consequences by utilizing the subjacency condition theory. The results showed that the characteristics of the argument bar movement in the relative clauses generated by 92% of BIPA students were in the form of short movements and did not exceed one bounding node. Based on the Indonesian language rules, most of the relative clauses produced by BIPA students were appropriate (75%). It shows that BIPA students have fully understood the relative clause structure.

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF RELATIVE CLAUSE GRAMMAR IN BOTH ARABIC AND ENGLISH

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF RELATIVE CLAUSE GRAMMAR IN BOTH ARABIC AND ENGLISH

Raising and matching in Pharasiot Greek relative clauses: A diachronic reconstruction

This paper studies the structure and origin of prenominal and postnominal restrictive relative clauses in Pharasiot Greek. Though both patterns are finite and introduced by the invariant complementizer tu, they differ in two important respects. First, corpus data reveal that prenominal relatives are older than their postnominal counterparts. Second, in the present-day language only prenominal relatives involve a matching derivation, whereas postnominal ones behave like Head-raising structures. Turning to diachrony, we suggest that prenominal relatives came into being through morphological fusion of a determiner t- with an invariant complementizer u. This process entailed a reduction of functional structure in the left periphery of the relative clause, to the effect that the landing site for a raising Head was suppressed, leaving a matching derivation as the only option. Postnominal relatives are analyzed as borrowed from Standard Modern Greek. Our analysis corroborates the idea that both raising and matching derivations for relatives must be acknowledged, sometimes even within a single language.

Similarity-based interference and relative clauses in second language processing

Relative clauses have long been examined in research on first (L1) and second (L2) language acquisition and processing, and a large body of research has shown that object relative clauses (e.g. ‘The boy that the girl saw’) are more difficult to process than subject relative clauses (e.g. ‘The boy that saw the girl’). Although there are different accounts of this finding, memory-based factors have been argued to play a role in explaining the object relative disadvantage. Evidence of memory-based factors in relative clause processing comes from studies indicating that representational similarity influences the difficulty associated with object relatives as a result of a phenomenon known as similarity-based interference. Although similarity-based interference has been well studied in L1 processing, less is known about how it influences L2 processing. We report two studies – an eye-tracking experiment and a comprehension task – investigating interference in the comprehension of relative clauses in L1 and L2 readers. Our results indicated similarity-based interference in the processing of object relative clauses in both L1 and L2 readers, with no significant differences in the size of interference effects between the two groups. These results highlight the importance of considering memory-based factors when examining L2 processing.

“All the people who live in Auckland”: A study of subject and non-subject relative clauses in Auckland English

<p>This thesis is a study of the variation in relative marker choice by speakers of Auckland English. The data used in this study was collected as part of “Breaking Babel – Rethinking Language Change in a super-diverse city” (Meyerhoff et al. 2015). The thesis investigates the syntactic and social conditioning on the variation of the complementisers used to introduce relative clauses in the speech of a diverse group of Aucklanders. As a super-diverse city with a rapidly changing sociolinguistic profile, Auckland offers a rich source of data. This research explores how syntactic variation marks speakers of “Auckland English”. This work addresses several key research questions which centre on whether there is evidence of language change for this variable, and if so where has the change been initiated and by whom is it lead. Further, how does the variation in Auckland English compare other communities studied, both in terms of studies of relative clause variation and variation in super-diverse cities. These questions derive from an exploration of the history of relative clauses in English. In chapter 2, I review how the current variable system of relative markers developed and how they have been treated both by syntacticians and variationists in previous literature. The purpose of a (restrictive) relative clause is to delimit the denotational reference of an antecedent head nominal that it post-modifies (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1034–1035). As such, variation in the choice of complementiser that introduces relative clauses tells us a great deal about how speakers specify information. The variability of relative markers is highly circumscribed (Ball 1996, Levey 2014). Nevertheless, the syntactic and social factors governing their distribution vary between speech communities and can offer insight into the linguistic profiles of these communities (Tagliamonte et al 2005, D’Arcy and Tagliamonte 2010). This study analyses over 2000 tokens of relative clauses, coded for syntactic environment and speaker age, sex and community. Three communities, chosen for their differing demographic profiles, are sampled across Auckland. Significant predictors of relative marker choice are then compared to other studies of relative clause variation. This thesis then explores (i) which factors are universal or common predictors of relativiser choice, (ii) which factors index Auckland English and (iii) which are markers of specific communities within Auckland. Previous studies of superdiverse cities (cf. Cheshire et al. 2015) have shown that the input of many diverse language varieties into a community can lead to large scale innovation and change. I explore the variation in relative markers in Auckland English in this context. Little evidence of language change taking place is found in this study and in fact, social factors such as age-grading patterns may suggest stable variation. There is some evidence of levelling (Trudgill 2004) in the most diverse of the three communities surveyed. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the significance of these results, both to the study of relative clauses and linguistic variation in general.</p>

“All the people who live in Auckland”: A study of subject and non-subject relative clauses in Auckland English

<p>This thesis is a study of the variation in relative marker choice by speakers of Auckland English. The data used in this study was collected as part of “Breaking Babel – Rethinking Language Change in a super-diverse city” (Meyerhoff et al. 2015). The thesis investigates the syntactic and social conditioning on the variation of the complementisers used to introduce relative clauses in the speech of a diverse group of Aucklanders. As a super-diverse city with a rapidly changing sociolinguistic profile, Auckland offers a rich source of data. This research explores how syntactic variation marks speakers of “Auckland English”. This work addresses several key research questions which centre on whether there is evidence of language change for this variable, and if so where has the change been initiated and by whom is it lead. Further, how does the variation in Auckland English compare other communities studied, both in terms of studies of relative clause variation and variation in super-diverse cities. These questions derive from an exploration of the history of relative clauses in English. In chapter 2, I review how the current variable system of relative markers developed and how they have been treated both by syntacticians and variationists in previous literature. The purpose of a (restrictive) relative clause is to delimit the denotational reference of an antecedent head nominal that it post-modifies (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1034–1035). As such, variation in the choice of complementiser that introduces relative clauses tells us a great deal about how speakers specify information. The variability of relative markers is highly circumscribed (Ball 1996, Levey 2014). Nevertheless, the syntactic and social factors governing their distribution vary between speech communities and can offer insight into the linguistic profiles of these communities (Tagliamonte et al 2005, D’Arcy and Tagliamonte 2010). This study analyses over 2000 tokens of relative clauses, coded for syntactic environment and speaker age, sex and community. Three communities, chosen for their differing demographic profiles, are sampled across Auckland. Significant predictors of relative marker choice are then compared to other studies of relative clause variation. This thesis then explores (i) which factors are universal or common predictors of relativiser choice, (ii) which factors index Auckland English and (iii) which are markers of specific communities within Auckland. Previous studies of superdiverse cities (cf. Cheshire et al. 2015) have shown that the input of many diverse language varieties into a community can lead to large scale innovation and change. I explore the variation in relative markers in Auckland English in this context. Little evidence of language change taking place is found in this study and in fact, social factors such as age-grading patterns may suggest stable variation. There is some evidence of levelling (Trudgill 2004) in the most diverse of the three communities surveyed. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the significance of these results, both to the study of relative clauses and linguistic variation in general.</p>

Undoing Wh-Movement: On the Need for Multiple Copies

This contribution presents an outline of the current scholarly discussion of reconstruction with wh-movement, focussing on the Lebeaux Effect (LE) and wider aspects of reconstruction with wh-movement. It presents empirical problems for both the proposals based on the LE and the novel account of movement and reconstruction based on the notion of Minimal Copy. It points out that particular copies may differ not only in size (i.e., they do or do not include the adjunct as a relative clause or PP) but also in content. It refers to an analysis, where copies left by movement are levelled with copies left by ellipsis and subject to the mechanism of Vehicle Change. An account of reconstruction including multiple copies and Vehicle Change predicts that the structural complexity of the wh-phrase and its distance from the offending c-commanding pronoun (embedding and obviation effects) should contribute to an amelioration of Condition C in addition to the LE.