Abstract
This chapter studies relative pronouns in UG with special attention to Welsh and Breton. Unlike other pronouns, relative pronouns have not been investigated extensively. Furthermore, the preverbal particle a in Welsh and Breton has been a source of some confusion and debate. Some scholars regard it as a complementizer while others treat it as a relative pronoun.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes to Chapter 5
My point here seems to parallel that made in Chomsky (1981, p. 80) and elsewhere.
But see Bresnan and Grimshaw (1978) for an alternative point of view holding that free relatives have relative pronouns as the head of the NP.
Safir (1986) also contains a critique of Chomsky’s treatment of relative clauses, although his analysis of relatives is substantially different from the one defended in the text.
See for example Cinque’s (1981) description of Italian.
French does not seem to be an isolated example. The description of Malay in Keenan and Comrie (1977) appears to parallel the situation in French.
Chomsky (1986) however appears to abandon this suggestion, and simply stipulates that S is sometimes a barrier for Wh-movement.
Woolford (1981) contains an interesting exploration of the Subjacency Condition in Swedish.
Vinet (1984) catalogues some potential problems for Kayne’s analysis, however.
Hemon (1975a) reports some evidence suggesting that Middle Breton may have behaved otherwise. No Breton structure comparable to the Welsh (69) can be constructed because pronouns do not co-occur with prepositions in Breton.
These sentences are reported in Williams (1980, p. 137).
Again, (75) is from Williams (1980) and is formal Welsh.
I follow Jones and Thomas (1977, p. 240) here.
These examples as well as those in (92)–(94) are adapted from Kervella (1947, p. 188).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hendrick, R. (1988). Government and the Connection between Relative Pronouns, Complementizers and Subjacency. In: Anaphora in Celtic and Universal Grammar. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2719-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2719-3_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7725-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2719-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive