[Lingtyp] Relativization

[Dryer, Matthew]

I would like to point out that it is not uncommon outside of Europe to find relative clauses marked by pronominal words which are not relative pronouns in the sense of Comrie and Kuteva in that they do not exhibit case marking, but are still pronominal in the sense that they vary for pronominal features like gender and/or number.

Matthew

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Jeff Siegel <jsiegel2 at une.edu.au<mailto:jsiegel2 at une.edu.au>>
Date: Monday, March 19, 2018 at 1:26 AM
To: "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>" <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
Subject: [Lingtyp] Relativization

Greetings:

In the description of relativization in WALS (features 122A and 123A), the relative pronoun strategy is shown to stand out “as being typically European since it is not found in Indo-European languages spoken outside Europe, and is exceptional more generally outside Europe” (Comrie & Kuteva 2013). This strategy is defined as follows:

“[T]he position relativized is indicated inside the relative clause by means of a clause-initial pronominal element, and this pronominal element is case-marked (by case or by an adposition) to indicate the role of the head noun within the relative clause.” (Comrie & Kuteva 2013)

The only language outside the European area shown to use this strategy is Acoma, Keresan language of New Mexico.

Could anyone lead me to examples of the relative pronoun strategy used in other languages outside Europe? Also, could anyone provide such examples from Acoma or related languages? (I can’t seem to find any in the descriptions of Keresan languages that I have examined.)

Reference:

Bernard Comrie, Tania Kuteva. 2013. Relativization on Subjects. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
(Available online at http://wals.info/chapter/122, Accessed on 2018-03-19.)

Many thanks,

Thanks,

Jeff


Emeritus Professor Jeff Siegel
Linguistics, School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
University of New England
Armidale, NSW 2351
Australia
https://www.une.edu.au/staff-profiles/bcss/jsiegel




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