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The Matching Analysis of relative clauses: an argument from antipronominal contexts

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Abstract

This paper provides a novel argument for the Matching Analysis of relative clauses. The argument is based on antipronominal contexts in German. Antipronominal contexts are syntactic environments that require lexical DPs and therefore bar pronouns. It is argued that the behavior of relative clauses in antipronominal contexts in German points to two conclusions. First, relative pronouns contain a phonologically invisible NP that is identical to the NP contained in the head noun. Second, the two NPs are not connected via movement. Since only the Matching Analysis takes the two NPs to be base-generated, it is concluded that the Matching Analysis represents the correct structure for relative clauses.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank for helpful comments the audiences of the Universities of Frankfurt am Main and Utrecht, of the Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS) Berlin and of the 36th DGfS meeting in Marburg, where parts of this work were presented. Many thanks also to Boban Arsenijević, Hans-Martin Gärtner, Caroline Heycock, Paul Postal, Martin Salzmann, and Gert Webelhuth for discussions. Special thanks go to three anonymous reviewers whose comments significantly improved both form and content of this article.

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    Andreas Pankau

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Pankau, A. The Matching Analysis of relative clauses: an argument from antipronominal contexts. J Comp German Linguistics 21, 189–245 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-018-9097-5

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