No subject

Ileana Paul ipaul at videotron.ca
Sat Oct 20 13:44:21 UTC 2001


I believe that this is an inappropriate response. This
list is for asking and answering questions. Not for
making pedantic points. If one wishes the person asking
a question to know that he or she is using
nonstandard terminology, one should write to that
person, not to the list.
--
>
>  I think it should be emphasized that the query
>  repeated below uses the
>  question of what NPs can be relativized in a
>  nonstandard sense.  Normally,
>  when linguists talk about what NPs can be
>  relativized or what grammatical
>  roles the head of a relative clause can have in a
>  language, they are
>  referring to the grammatical role of the head in the
>  RELATIVE clause, not
>  in the MAIN clause.  In all three examples cited by
>  Whitney Postman in her
>  message, repeated here, the head of the relative
>  clause is functioning as
>  the subject in the relative clause (though they have
>  different functions
>  in the main clause):
>
>  (1) The woman [who is singing a lullaby] is holding
>  a baby.
>  (2) The woman is holding a baby [who is sleeping].
>  (3) The baby is held by the woman [who is singing a
>  lullaby].
>
>  These contrast with examples like (4) to (6), where
>  the heads differ as to
>  their role in the relative clause:
>
>  (4) The woman [who is singing a lullaby] is holding
>  a baby.
>  (5) The baby [that the woman is holding] is
>  sleeping.
>  (6) The woman [that the baby is being held by] is
>  singing.
>
>  Grammatical restrictions on what role the head can
>  have in the main clause
>  are much less common than restrictions on what role
>  the head can have in
>  the relative clause.
>
>  Matthew Dryer



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