[Lingtyp] Relativization

Mon Mar 26 13:56:54 UTC 2018

I wouldn't say that the Koyra Chiini form is "arguably" a relative 
pronoun, because it's a question of definition, not of argumentation. 
(People sometimes say that they "disagree" with terminological choices, 
but I think the verbs "adopt" or "reject" are better suited when it 
comes to talking about other people's terminological choices.)

As Matthew noted earlier, in the WALS chapter by Comrie & Kuteva, the 
"relative pronoun strategy" is clearly defined as one involving an 
element that can be flagged for its syntactic role (" a clause-initial 
pronominal element [which] is case-marked (by case or by an adposition) 
to indicate the role of the head noun within the relative clause", 
http://wals.info/chapter/122).

Likewise, in the APiCS chapter by Michaelis et al., "a relative-clause 
marker is regarded as a relative pronoun if it has different subject and 
object forms ..., or if it can be combined with an adposition" 
(http://apics-online.info/parameters/92.chapter.html).

Because of these authoritative uses, I would reject (but not argue 
against) a terminological use (in typology) according to which relative 
pronouns are said to include relativizers that vary for ("pronominal") 
features like gender and/or number but do not indicate syntactic role. 
(And if there were an "IPA of morphosyntax", as suggested here 
<https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1000>, it should have the same meaning as in 
the WALS and APiCS chapters.)

Thus, from a typological point of view, the relativizers of Koyra Chiini 
and Coast Tsimshian are clearly relative pronouns.

Martin

On 26.03.18 15:27, Dryer, Matthew wrote:
>
> In Koyra Chiini (Heath 1999: 192), the relative word is arguably a 
> relative pronoun since it can occur with a postposition.
>
> Coast Tsimshian has a construction which could be analysed as 
> involving a relative pronoun in that relative clauses are marked with 
> a word that varies for the grammatical relation of the head in the 
> relative clause, /gu/ if it is the A,/in/ if it is the S or P (Mulder 
> 1994: 142).
>
> Heath, Jeffrey. (1999) /A grammar of Koyra Chiini: The Songhay of 
> Timbuktu/. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
>
> Mulder, Jean Gail. (1994) /Ergativity in Coast Tsimshian (Sm'algyax)/. 
> Berkeley: University of California Press.
>
> Matthew
>
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org 
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of 
> Bernard Comrie <comrie at linguistics.ucsb.edu 
> <mailto:comrie at linguistics.ucsb.edu>>
> Date: Monday, March 26, 2018 at 3:40 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: Re: [Lingtyp] Relativization
>
> Dear Jeff:
>
> Some thoughts on your post.
>
> The chapters in WALS are necessarily very brief, so often it will be 
> necessary to look at other literature.
>
> As many people have noted, including me back in an early publication 
> on European-type relative clauses (Comrie 1998: 79), the European-type 
> relative clause has recently (e.g. through colonialism) spread through 
> contact to languages outside Europe. These are of course not 
> independent instances of the development of this kind of relative clause.
>
> I went into somewhat more detail on possible independent candidates 
> for European-type relative clauses in Comrie (2006). If you compare 
> this article with WALS, please note that the publication details are 
> misleading; some points discussed in the 2006 article that came up 
> during preparatory work on WALS did not find their way into the final 
> version of WALS.
>
> Regarding your specific question on Acoma: I'll need to check, as I 
> don't have the relevant data immediately to hand.
>
> Best,
>
> Bernard
>
> References
>
> Comrie, B. 1998. Rethinking the typology of relative clauses. 
> /Language Design/ 1: 59-86.
>
> Comrie, B. 2006. Syntactic typology: just how exotic ARE European-type 
> relative clauses? In Ricardo Mairal and Juana Gil (eds.): /Linguistic 
> Universals/, 130-154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
>
>
>
> On 2018/3/18 17:26, Jeff Siegel wrote:
>>
>> 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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>
> -- 
>
> Bernard Comrie
> Distinguished Faculty Professor of Linguistics, University of California Santa Barbara
>
> E-mail: comrie at linguistics.ucsb.edu
> Web site:http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/people/bernard-comrie
>
> Department of Linguistics
> University of California, Santa Barbara
> Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100
> USA
>
>
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-- 
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10	
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
IPF 141199
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