Relative Clauses

L322

 

Relative clauses are bound clauses that modify NPs and occasionally CPs. The former are adjoined to NPs. A relative clause contains a WH-phrase which moves and is adjoined to CP:

  1. The student who likes syntax is a cog-sci major.
  2. Our neighbor's dog, who the mailman was bit by, has been muzzled.

The WH-phrase is called a relative pronoun in tranditional grammar. It is an operator--a relative operator. Relative operators are very similar to WH-operators--both contain the feature [+WH].

The blue link shows the link between the relative pronoun and the noun that it modifies. There is one known difference between relative and WH-operators. The WH-word which is a PRO-AP (a modifier) when it is a WH-operator, but it may be a PRO-NP referring to inanimate objects when it is a relative operator:

  1. Which book did John read?
  2. *What did John read?
  3. What did John read?
  4. The book which John read is dull.
  5. The book that John read is dull.
  6. (*)The book what John read is dull.

Number (6) is considered unacceptable in standard Colloquial English but is found in many substandard dialects.

In the diagram above, the relative pronoun who is an operator and it must move to the WH-landing site in CP. Unlike the WH-operator which must agree with the subcategorization feature of the dominant verb, the relative operator must move until it is adjacent to NP which it modifies. Here, it is our neighbor's dog.

A relative clause may originate in a clause that is embedded deeper than the clause which is directly adjoined to the modificand:

  1. The prof failed the student who everyone thinks he was going to pass.

Here, the relative operator originates as the direct object of pass:

The relative operator must move; it moves to the first CP. Think does subcategorize WH and think is a bridging verb. Therefore, who crosses the bridge escaping from the island clause and moves to the next CP. Since who is a relative operator and it is adjacent to the noun phrase it modifies, it remains there.

Note that a single clause cannot contain more than one relative operator: Consider the following D-structure where both WH-words are relative pronominals such that the first one is coindexed with the student and the second one with the teacher::

  1. The teacher finally met the student [ who knows who teaches algebra ].

The first relative operator moves to CP where it is adjacent to the student. The second relative operator must also move and be adjacent to its modificand. However, it must first move to the first CP, but this position is now occupied by the first relative operator. It cannot bypass this position and a position may contain no more than one constituent. Extraction is not possible and the adjacency condition cannot be met. Therefore, the D-structure crashes:

'X' marks the position of the blocked movement. The orange arrow indicates an incomplete movment. This example does not crash (has a grammatical form) only if the second who is a headless relative. We have not covered headless relative clauses yet--they are adjoined to empty NPs.

A sentence may contain two relative operators providing they both do not occur in the same clause and no movement violation occurs:

  1. The building which no one likes could crumble during the next quake which everyone is predicting

 

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