appositive relative clauses

[Nigel Vincent]

Is there an issue of terminology here? I've always understood appositive
relatives to be those which accompany but do not restrict the meaning of a
definite head  or a proper noun - e.g. 'My brother, who is an engineer' in the
circumstance in which I only have one brother and the NP is therefore already
unqiely referring without the relative. Similarly with 'Gordon Brown, who is
the prime minister'. Compare in this respect the traditional kind of
(non-relative) apposition in examples like 'Paris, capital of France'. 
But then
the Arabic examples that Wolfgang cites wouldn't be appositive, would they?
Indeed my question to Lutz would be: if an appositive relative doesn't have a
relative pronoun or particle why would we want to call it a relative in the
first place?
Best,
Nigel


Quoting Wolfgang Schulze <w.schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>:

> Dear Lutz,
>
>> Does anyone know of languages having *appositve* relative clauses that do
>> not make use of relative pronouns or particles?
>>
> Sure. just recall relative clauses in Arabic the head of which is 
> indefinite (the Arabic term is s.ifatun), e.g. (Classical Arabic):
>
> dimashqu madi:natun fi:ha: `adzha:'ibu kathi:ratun
> Damascus [is] a=city in=it [ar] marvels many
> 'Damascus is a city in which are many marvels.'
>
> WALS 122-123 lists further strategies. However, as far as I can see, 
> WALS does not discuss in more details appositive relative clauses 
> (that is, following their head) without relative pronouns etc. 
> (called gapping in WALS). Note that contrary e.g. to English, gapping 
> appositive relative clauses can - in Classical Arabic - also mark a 
> referent (Head) in 'subject' function (with the relative clause), e.g.
>
> ra'aitu waladan qad taraka 'aba:hu(:)
> I=saw a=boy [who] just he=left his=father
> 'I saw a boy who has left his father.
>
> Best wishes,
> Wolfgang
>
>>
>>
>>
>
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-- 
Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA
Associate Vice-President for Graduate Education


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