The syntax and semantics of english relative clauses

McCawley, James D.

doi:10.1016/0024-3841(81)90014-0

Cited by 130 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…43 The 'inverse' pseudocleft in (73b) is included to show that the failure of idiom connectivity is not due to a linearity effect. 44 There are also cases where idiom evidence might require a structure in which the head NP of a relative is base-generated in its surface position (Delahunty, 1981;McCawley, 1981):…”

Section: Bmentioning

confidence: 98%

The syntactic structure of English clefts

Reeve

2011

Lingua

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Section: Bmentioning

confidence: 98%

The syntactic structure of English clefts

Reeve

2011

Lingua

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“…An alternative with a conjoined structure would be equally acceptable. But this is precisely what makes the sentence so relevant to theoretical considerations: the fact that an RC translation is acceptable without change of meaning seems to sup port the conjunction analysis of RC's proposed by Thompson (1971) and McCawley (1981) in particular. 12 This evidence is similar to Romaine's (1980) observation that in Scots Gaelic a coordinate structure is often an easy way out of a "difficult relative construction," so that the woman and it happened in her house is an alternative to the woman in whose house it happened (243, note 10).…”

Section: B Ain Nough [Money] Fuh Buy My Bacco [ 0]mentioning

confidence: 94%

Restrictive Relativization in Gullah

Mufwene¹

1986

JPCL

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It is argued in this paper that there are three kinds of relative clause (RC) strategies in Gullah: the deletion, WH-pronoun, and resumptive pro noun (RP) strategies. The deletion strategy applies to RC's beginning with a null (0) COMP or a purposive fuh, the WH strategy applies to Ø-COMP RC's, and the RP strategy applies to any of the above kinds. The latter actu ally complements the former two in allowing relativization where a gap is not permitted, viz., from the genitive function to the bottom of the KeenanComrie NP Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH). However, it is sometimes attested where a gap is permitted. The deletion and WH strategies are akin in allowing a gap under the same NPAH-based constraints, which is the opposite of the application of the RP strategy. But it is argued that Gullah's WH rel is only COMP-like but not a COMP itself. In a different vein, the question of the origin of these RC strategies is also addressed in this paper. The evidence points to the predominant role of English superstrate influence and to the restriction of possible, corroborative, African substrate influence only to the COMP-like interpretation of WH rel .

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“…This analytic deficiency is addressed in works like McCawley (1982McCawley ( , 1988, Romaine (1982), Lambrecht (1988), and Matsumoto (1996Matsumoto ( , 1997Matsumoto ( , 2000, which present detailed semantic descriptions associated with particular relative clause constructions and o¤er discoursal and pragmatic constraints for the use of various relatives (we refer to some of these in the following sections).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Conceptual blending and the interpretation of relatives: A case study from Greek

Nikiforidou¹

2005

Cogl

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This article examines instances of the pu relative construction in ModernGreek in which the semantic role of the head is underspecified by the syntax. Such cases include sentences whose nominal head corresponds to some complement of the relative clause predicate and sentences in which the head does not have any sort of syntactic relationship with the relative. The latter, which are characteristic of oral, informal discourse, have been completely ignored in the previous literature, which has defined relatives on the basis of exclusively structural criteria. It is argued that a unified account of the pu-construction (including gapped and gapless relatives) can be achieved if we analyze it as a conventional instruction for a particular kind of conceptual integration. Semantic and pragmatic factors influencing successful construal (one which leads to the construction of a unique blend) are systematically examined. The lack of a clear cut-o¤ point in acceptability for such utterances tallies with the conclusion reached here, namely that the constraints governing such uses are constraints on interpretability.

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The syntax and semantics of english relative clauses

Cited by 130 publications

References 3 publications

The syntactic structure of English clefts

The syntactic structure of English clefts

Restrictive Relativization in Gullah

Conceptual blending and the interpretation of relatives: A case study from Greek

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