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

[David Gil]

Matt,

This doesn't quite meet your definition, but ...

Both Riau Indonesian (Gil 2000) and Singlish, aka Colloquial Singaporean 
English (Gil 2003), have internally-headed relative clauses, for example

Lisa choose the house yesterday, Ah Tao buy that one
'Ah Tao bought the house that Lisa chose yesterday'
(Gil 2003 e.g. (49))

I don't think I mentioned this anywhere in writing, but in both Riau 
Indonesian and Singlish, the internally-headed relative seems — based on 
naturalistic observations — to always occur in an initial, topic- or 
subject-like position, as in the above example.

Although this isn't actually a constraint on the role of the 
coreferential argument in the matrix clause, what seems to be common to 
the above and to the cases that have been cited so far in this thread, 
is that they both reflect a preference for embedded clauses to occur in 
prominent topic or subject positions.

David






Gil, David (2000) "Riau Indonesian: A VO Language with Internally-Headed 
Relative Clauses", /Snippets/ 1.

Gil, David (2003) "English Goes Asian; Number and (In)definiteness in 
the Singlish Noun-Phrase", in F. Plank ed., /Noun Phrase Structure in 
the Languages of Europe,/ Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 
Eurotyp 20-7, Mouton, Berlin and New York, 467-514.




On 22/07/2019 09:30, Matthew Carroll 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             [^n top     mi 
>             bori      ye]
>     dog-sg.ergmandisthe:will:bite:himbigrel.abs          compis
>     '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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-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany

Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816

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