appositive relative clauses

[Martin Haspelmath]

Nigel Vincent wrote:
> 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
> uniquely referring without the relative. 
Yes, the term "appositive relative clause" is generally used in this 
sense, but this terminology is confusing, because "apposition" is 
normally used in one or two other senses. (Paul Hopper's term 
"appositional relative clause" is not conventional, and I think it is an 
result of the confusion.)

For this reason, it is useful to have a detailed terminological 
dictionary such as Glottopedia (see 
http://urts120.uni-trier.de/glottopedia/index.php/Appositive_relative_clause). 
Eventually we should be able to settle on less confusing terminology 
(e.g. in this case "nonrestrictive relative clause"), but to achieve 
that, we first need to have a detailed record of terminological usage. 
So your contributions to Glottopedia are welcome!

Martin

P.S. Lutz's original query was about nonrestrictive relative clauses 
without a relative pronoun or particle, but apparently he is primarily 
interested in nonrestrictive relative clauses that are not marked for 
subordination at all. I can very well imagine that there is indeed a 
tendency for zero-coded relative clause constructions to be avoided in 
nonrestrictive use, though I think there are few reports of 
nonrestrictive relative clauses differing in their coding from 
restrictive relative clauses. Maybe this is because nonrestrictive 
relative clauses occur mostly in written language, and most languages 
are not used in writing.

-- 
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6	
D-04103 Leipzig      
Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616

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