"Relative clauses" with no relativized element

[Suzanne Kemmer]

In Generative Syntax these clauses were viewed as complement clauses  
with an NP head, distinct
from relative clauses but having some parallels with them.  I think it  
was Joan Bresnan that
brought out the parallels and distinctions, maybe in her doctoral  
dissertation . As I recall (but
my remembrance may be faulty), Bresnan named the
THAT element a COMP for complementizer.

The term 'appositive' isn't very good because in traditional grammar
that is reserved for an  'UNrestrictive' relation of a noun and its  
complement--an incidental description of
a head N's referent rather than a specification of which referent  
("the tree, a live oak, survived another 100 years or so").

In Cognitive Grammar  nouns like claim, statement, idea, realization,  
belief etc. are in almost all cases nominalizations of 'viewing  
predicates'
(verbs like claim, believe,  etc.) that introduce on-stage  
predications 'viewed' by a conceptualizer (the person doing the  
claiming, etc.). (the viewing
predicates are space builders in Fauconnier's mental spaces terminology)

For the nominalizations of these predicates, the semantics of the  
nouns intrinsically has an "e-site" or elaboration site
that allows for spelling out the content of the viewed predicate in  
the form of a complement clause.  The e-site
inherent to the semantics of the nouns is parallel to the e-site  
inherent to the semantics of the corresponding verbs.

There are a few cases I can think of  of nouns that have  'viewing  
predicate' e-sites but don't have  corresponding verbs .
For example
the noun _view_   "The view that global climate change is  
anthropogenic is widely held by scientists"
( ' X views that (proposition)' is not possible, only 'X views Y  
as ...' , with a restriction to equative or descriptive propositions).
Also _idea_----the verb has to be changed to something like 'believe'   
to make a corresponding full predicate.

I view (!) these nouns as semantically parallel in interesting ways to  
picture nouns.  The conceptualizer (viewer) in
both cases can designate the noun in a possessive phrase, but after  
that the syntax diverges.

--Suzanne

On Sep 10, 2010, at 11:21 AM, Arie Verhagen wrote:

> And as another addition: the clauses that can only be introduced by  
> *that* (with no role to
> play in the subordinate clause) may be seen as (subtypes of)  
> complement clauses,
> expressing a proposition with the noun functioning as Complement  
> Taking Predicate (CTP),
> expressing a propostional attitude, epistemic/evaluative stance,  
> etc. (following analyses by
> Thompson, Diessel, Langacker, myself, and others), i.e. not  
> relatives. Cf. constructions like
> "The claim is that X" (traditionally analysed as subject clauses),  
> "I claim that X", "I put forward
> the claim that X", in which the relationship between the verb or  
> noun and the that-clause is
> comparable to the one in "The claim that X".
>
> --Arie Verhagen
>
> ----------------
> Message from Rong Chen <rchen at csusb.edu>
> 10 Sep 2010, 23:42
> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] "Relative clauses" with no relativi
>
>> To add to Joanne's comments:
>>
>> There are basically three ways to distinguish an appositive clause
>> (AC) from a relative clause (RC).
>>
>> 1) An AC can only be led by *that* while an RC can be led by other
>> pronouns.
>>
>> 2) The AC and the noun it modifies display an equative  
>> relationship--one can say X
>> (denoted by the noun) is Y (presented by the appositive)--while an  
>> RC often doesn't
>> (except, perhaps, when the relative clause is sentential).
>
>> 3)--which Tom noted--*that* is not part of the clause in an AC; but  
>> a relative pronoun
>> is always part of the clause in an RC.
>>
>> Rong Chen
>>
>
>