Here the man is a definite nominal antecedent, who a relative pronoun (referring to the antecedent), and who is wearing a red jacket a restrictive relative clause, where the relative pronoun plays the role of the subject. However, cross-linguistically – but also language-internally – there are many types of relative clauses. In this article I intend to discuss the range of possibilities and pre...

In addition to its use as complementizer or relativizer (henceforth optional that), that can also occur as a demonstrative determiner (henceforth determiner that) or pronoun (henceforth pronoun that). So, if the embedded subject of a complement or relative clause begins with determiner that, (3a), or if the subject is a pronoun that, (3b), speakers have the option to avoid uttering two adjacent...

In this paper, I propose that Croatian relative clauses (RCs) introduced by the complementizer što ‘what/that’ do not form a homogeneous class with respect to their derivation: some are derived by movement, and some are derived by a non-movement strategy. Unless the relativized element is the subject, što-RCs normally require a resumptive pronoun to appear in the site of relativization. However...

This paper aims to clarify and resolve issues surrounding the so-called formal linking problem in interpreting the Internally Headed Relative Clause construction in Korean and Japanese, a problem that has been identified in recent E-type pronominal treatments of the construction (e.g., Hoshi 1995, Shimoyama 1999). In the literature, this problem refers to the difficulty of capturing the delimit...

Japanese relative clause constructions (RCC’s) are defined as being the NP’s of structure ‘S NP’, noting the lack of a relative pronoun or any other explicit form of noun-clause demarcation. Japanese relative clause modification should be classified into at least two major semantic types: case-slot gapping and head restrictive. However, these types for relative clause modification cannot appare...

Accounts of clause-level phenomena such as inversion and obviation (Aissen 1997, 1999) make crucial reference to the relative ranking of two arguments, subject and direct object, on a person/animacy/discourse hierarchy. Are such pair-wise comparisons ever required within the NP? O’Connor (1999a,b) proposed an analysis of NP-internal case-marking of possessors in Northern Pomo that paralleled Ai...

It is well known that sentences containing object-extracted relative clauses (e.g., The reporter that the senator attacked admitted the error) are more difficult to comprehend than sentences containing subject-extracted relative clauses (e.g., The reporter that attacked the senator admitted the error). Two major accounts of this phenomenon make different predictions about where, in the course o...