Internally Headed Relative Clauses
2010-Sep-08, Wednesday 00:38In G2 (mentioned in the preceding post), relative clauses are internally headed. This means that the head noun of the phrase appears within the relative clause with the cases appropriate for that clause; a resumptive pronoun immediately following the relative clause has the case appropriate for the matrix.
Originally I had the head noun always appear first in the clause, since the possessor or the whole are usually relativized rather than the possessum or the part (genitives and partitives precede what they modify). Example
house* in man RP died John sold.
However, this made sentences like this:
dog cat mouse bread ate RP caught RP chased RP I saw.
So now I have the phrases containing the head noun appear right before the verb of the relative clause:
bread mouse ate RP cat caught RP dog chased RP I saw.
I'm not sure if it solves all the problems though.
* I don't have articles yet and am not sure where they would go.
Originally I had the head noun always appear first in the clause, since the possessor or the whole are usually relativized rather than the possessum or the part (genitives and partitives precede what they modify). Example
house* in man RP died John sold.
However, this made sentences like this:
dog cat mouse bread ate RP caught RP chased RP I saw.
So now I have the phrases containing the head noun appear right before the verb of the relative clause:
bread mouse ate RP cat caught RP dog chased RP I saw.
I'm not sure if it solves all the problems though.
* I don't have articles yet and am not sure where they would go.