[Lingtyp] Query about constraints on co-referential arguments in matrix clauses

[Seino van Breugel]

Dear Matthew,

My 2010 article on attributive clauses, published in Studies in Language,
may be useful to you. I have attached a copy.

Regards,

Seino
__________________
Dr. Seino van Breugel
https://independent.academia.edu/SeinovanBreugel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHfiZwqyWC7HfZUAQ1RH1ew


On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 3:30 AM Matthew Carroll <mattcarrollj at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am curious about restrictions on arguments in matrix clauses that are
> co-referential with those in subordinate clauses.
>
> Restrictions on the role that a co-referential argument may play in a
> subordinate clause are well established in the literature (Keenan and
> Comrie 1977, and others). Rather I am interested in restrictions that may
> apply to the role that co-referential argument may play in the *matrix*
> clause.
>
> For example, in Ngkolmpu a Yam language spoken in West Papua that I have
> been working on, there is a relative clause strategy involving a right
> adjoined relative clause. The co-referential argument may serve *any role
> in the subordinate clause* but can only be the *absolutive argument of
> the matrix clause.*
>
> 1.     krar-w               irepe     pi         srampu             [ntop
> mi                     bori      ye]
>       dog-sg.erg      man      dist      he:will:bite:him  big       rel.abs
>          comp    is
>       'The dog will bite that man *who is big*’
>       ***’The dog, *who is big*, will bite that man.’
>
> Example (1) can only be interpreted as 'the man who is big' and never 'the
> dog who is big'. This has been confirmed through careful and systematic
> elicitation on this topic and confirmed by examples in my growing corpus
> (currently at about 1500 naturalistic utterances).
>
> Dixon (1977) notes similar restrictions in Yidiɲ. On page 323 of his
> grammar he posits the coreferentiality constraint: "*There must be an NP
> common to the main clause and subordinate clause, and it must be in surface
> S or O function in each clause." *
>
> Unlike the Ngkolmpu example, this applies to both the matrix NP and the
> subordinate NP which only applies to the matrix NP. Yet, importantly for my
> purpose, does place a restriction on the role of the matrix NP. I am
> curious to see if people know of other examples of these kind of
> constraints in matrix NPs? or perhaps there is a paper that I have missed
> in my (rather brief) survey of the literature on the topic.
>
> Regards,
> Matt
>
> Matthew J. Carroll
>
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