Relative clauses

[Yehuda N. Falk]

Dear LFG'ers,

I have a question about the analysis of relative clauses. The relativized
element (relative wh pronoun or unexpressed) is usually analyzed as the
TOPIC within the relative clause, and the relative clause itself is an
adjunct within the NP. But what is the nature of the coreference between
this topic and the larger NP? I can think of two possibilities, both of
which have potential problems.

-The TOPIC has the value [PRED 'PRO'], and the relation with the larger NP
is anaphoric. This seems to me to be what is usually assumed. It would
involve an "i-within-i" situation (where the whole NP is coreferential with
something inside it); I don't know if this is necessarily a problem or not.
It also seems to me that an anaphoric link is more approriate for
nonrestrictive relatives (where the wh pronoun, which would presumabky be
the origin of the [PRED 'PRO'] feature, is obligatory).

-Some sort of feature sharing between the TOPIC and the larger NP's
f­structure. The simplest version of this would be identity between the
TOPIC and the larger NP, but that would result in an infinite f­structure.
(It would also wrongly predict that the larger NP and the relativized
element share features like CASE.) Alternatively, perhaps certain features
are shared (like PRED?). But if the relative clause is part of the set of
adjuncts (assuming, standardly, that the value of ADJ is a set), such
identity would not be induceable by a wh element. It would have to be done
inside-out, and inside-out designators cannot (as far as I know) get out of
an element of a set (which works very nicely for the Coordinate Structure
Constraint).

Help!

Thanks,
Yehuda



                             Yehuda N. Falk
        Department of English, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
                      Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel
                         msyfalk at mscc.huji.ac.il
       Personal Web Site    http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msyfalk/
      Departmental Web Site    http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~english/

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