where > relativizer?

[Paolo Ramat]

oh yes!!
Cp.
 G k.    To     scholeío pou kontá tou             ētan     énas 
plátanos
                      ART   school    that   near to.it        (there) was 
a       plane tree



And, And more generally , see the so-called passe-partout Relative PRO:








laItal Ital(substandard)  Da te nascerà un bambino che gli darai nome Gesù

Sp.   Sp.  (substandard) es una constelación que ya la habéis visto vosotros 
muchas veces

Fr.    Fr. (substandard) voici la maison que Marie y pense encore

                                                                             
                    (cf. Fiorentino 1999)



Ingl.   Engl. (substandard) a girl that her eighteenth birthday was on that 
day



       ir    Ir.   An   bean     go     bhfuaireas                    an 
t-airgead uaithi

                  ART woman   REL  get PRET.1SG           ART  money 
from.her

             Srb-Cr. Formula         što   su           je       postavili

                        question          that   AUX.3PL  it..ACC  posed 
"the question that they posed"



arabo Cl.Ar.              bi-l-marלat-aini                   lla-taini 
darab-tu-huma

                                  with-DEF-woman-OBL.DU [REL-F:OBL.DU 
hit-SUBJ1.SG-OBJ3.DU]

                               “ with the two women that I hit” (Lehmann, 
1984: 98)



  malt Malt.      Il-kaptan li s-suldati tiegħu telquh qatel ruħu b’idejh

            “the captain  that his soldiers abandoned  committed suicide".





Prof. Paolo Ramat
Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS)
Responsabile della classe di Scienze Umane
V.le Lungo Ticino Sforza 56, 27100 Pavia – Italia
Tel. +39 0382 375811 Fax +39 0382 375899


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Yaron Matras" <yaron.matras at MANCHESTER.AC.UK>
To: <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:55 AM
Subject: Re: where > relativizer?


oh yes !!

Greek /pu/, Romani /kaj/, and southern dialectal German /wo/ are just
a couple of examples out of many.

Quoting peterarkadiev <peterarkadiev at YANDEX.RU>:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> According to the dictionary of Lithuanian language 
> (http://www.lkz.lt/startas.htm), the wh-word *kur*, whose basic  meaning 
> is 'where', can in some dialects be used as a general  relativizer similar 
> to English *that*. Cf. a nice example where this  word is used both to 
> form a question about location, and to  relativize the subject:
>
> Kur tas piemuo, kur gano šitas kiaules?
> where that(NOM.SG) shepherd(NOM.SG) who pasture(PRS.3) pig(ACC.PL)
> 'Where is that shepherd, who (lit. where) pastures pigs?'
>
> I wonder whether this or similar kinds of polysemy are attested 
> cross-linguistically.
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Peter Arkadiev
> Institute of Slavic Studies
> Moscow
>



-- 
Yaron Matras
Professor in Linguistics
School of Languages, Linguistics & Cultures
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL, UK

Phone (direct): (00)44 (0)161 275 3975
Romani project: (00)44 (0)161 275 5999
http://romani.humanities.manchester.ac.uk
http://romani.languagecontact.manchester.ac.uk