Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages (original) (raw)
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Headless relative clauses with a gap: A typological trait of Mesoamerican languages
Linguistic Typology, 2024
This paper has two main goals. One is to introduce a type of "headless" (or "antecedentless") relative clause that presents a gap strategy and that has not been sufficiently discussed in the typological literature. The other is to show that this type of headless relative clause with a gap is a characteristic trait of Mesoamerican languages, since it exists in many languages of the Mesoamerican linguistic area as an important constructional option in their relativization syntax, independently of the genetic relationships of the language in question. Two types of headless relative clauses are well known to date: one involving a relativization strategy with a relative pronoun (e.g., I wore what you asked me to wear) and another with a light head, introduced by Citko (2004), somewhat comparable to I wore the one that you asked me to wear. The third type of headless relative clause discussed here presents a gap (i.e., there is no manifestation of the relativized term in the relative clause). It would be equivalent to saying 'I wore you asked me to wear'. The phenomenon we study here is interesting both from a typological and areal point of view.
Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerica Languages, eds. Enrique Palancar, Roberto Zavala Maldonado, and Claudine Chamoreau. Amsterdam: Brill. , 2021
In this chapter, we identify what constitutes the canonical profile of relative constructions in the Mesoamerican languages. We propose that the typical Mesoamerican relative clause is a morphosyntactic finite relative clause with a gap, but when the relativized position is that of locative, a relative pronoun is typically used (with this pattern reaching out beyond Mesoamerica). In our proposal, we have identified three structural traits that we take to be Mesoamerican: (i) relative clauses introduced by determiners which agree in deixis with the determiner of the DP in which the domain nominal of the relative clause is embedded; (ii) the so-called ʻpied-piping with inversionʼ introduced by Smith-Stark (1988) for interrogatives that has percolated into relative clause structure; and (iii) headless relative clauses with a gap, that is, headless relative clauses where there is little indication as to the role of the relativized element. 2 CHAPTER 1
Relative clause in Mesoamerican Languages. Preface.
Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerica Languages, eds. Enrique Palancar, Roberto Zavala Maldonado, and Claudine Chamoreau. Amsterdam: Brill. , 2021
This book is on relative clause structure in the Mesoamerican languages. The book consists of a total of nine chapters in the form of independent articles. We use the concept ‘RC structure’ as an umbrella term here to refer to relevant aspects of linguistic structure that revolve around relative clauses (RCs) and relative constructions. Seven chapters are on different language families of the Mesoamerica linguistic area, including Nahuatl, Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean, Chatino, Zapotec and Otomian, while an eighth chapter is on Pesh, a Chibchan language spoken in Honduras, outside the limits of Mesoamerica. While we do not consider Pesh a Mesoamerican language, we include it in the book to show the extent to which the relative constructions found in the other languages of this book can indeed be said to be Mesoamerican. In this connection, the first article in the book sets the typological scene, as it were, taking an areal view of the phenomenon and thus allowing us to propose what type of RC structure is typically Mesoamerican.
Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerica. An areal perspective. Afterword
2021
International audienceWe conclude this book by briefly highlighting its most important contributions to the creation of new typological knowledge on the syntax of the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica from the light shed by their RC structure. This exercise leads us to further propose some lines for future research that we believe are essential to cover if we want our knowledge of this area to be more complete
Headless Relative Clauses in Matlatzinca
Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages, 2021
In this chapter, a rich array of headless relative clauses in Matlatzinca (Atzincan, Oto-Pamean, Oto-Manguean; Mexico) is presented, mainly based on the patterns found in a corpus of natural data from spontaneous narratives and conversations by fluent native speakers. While free relative clauses are attested in the language, by far the most common type of headless relative clause is an asyndetic clause, i.e., a clause with no complementizer or relative pronoun. Maximal and existential free relative clauses are only found with the wh- words for ‘who,’ ‘what,’ and ‘where,’ but free-choice free relative clauses apparently also allow for the wh-word for ‘how much.’
Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerica Languages, eds. Enrique Palancar, Roberto Zavala Maldonado, and Claudine Chamoreau. , 2021
In this chapter, I offer the first description of restrictive headed relative constructions in Pesh, a Chibchan language spoken in Honduras. This language follows three relativization strategies: 1) internally-headed relative clauses in which the head nominal of the relative clause, which is a core argument or a genitive, occurs inside the relative clause. This is the most frequent and primary strategy in Pesh, as it is used to relativize subjects; 2) externally-headed relative clauses in which the head nominal, which has a peripheral role in the relative clause, occurs outside the relative clause, being represented in the relative clause by a gap; and 3) relative clauses introduced by a WH-word that functions as a relative; only locative WH-words piah 'where' and pikan 'where, in which direction' occur. The distribution of the three relative clauses in Pesh clearly responds to accessibility restrictions on specific functions. Further, this chapter explores the relation between relative strategies and degree of finiteness. Internally-headed relative clauses and externally-headed relative clauses are less finite and show some nominalized features in the scalar phenomenon of nominalization, since the marker that obligatorily occurs at the end of the relative construction in internally-headed relative clauses and at the end of the relative clause in externally-headed relative clauses is a case or the topic enclitic marker prototypically used at the end of noun and postpositional phrases. In contrast, relative clauses bearing a WHword are most finite, and their subordinate feature is marked by a subordinator at the end of the verb.