GB330
Are there relative clauses that require an anaphoric pronoun in the main clause? For example, [The woman who has a green hat] she is tall. A relative clause is a type of clause that serves to modify a noun. Merely having a verb that modifies the noun does not suffice as evidence of a relative clause. In such cases, it is more likely to be identified as a participle.
- Code 1 if a source mentions that there are correlative relative clauses or that there are relative clauses with an anaphoric pronoun in the main clause.
- Code 1 if you find examples of relative clauses with an anaphoric pronoun in the main clause.
- Code 0 if a source mentions that there are no correlative relative clauses or that relative clauses never have an anaphoric pronoun in the main clause.
- Code 0 if a source comprehensively describes relative clauses but does not discuss correlative relative clauses (or anaphoric pronouns in main clauses in the context of relative clauses).
- Code ? if there are examples that contain potential correlative relative clauses but the analysis is inconclusive.
- Code ? if the source does not treat relative clauses in much detail and may have missed correlative relative clauses.
Hindi (ISO 639-3: hin, Glottolog: hind1269)
Hindi has a correlative relative clause construction, where an anaphoric demonstrative is used in the main clause to link the relative clause and the main clause together (cf. Srivastav 1991). Hindi would be coded 1 for this feature.
jo laRkii khaRii hai vo lambii hai
REL girl standing is DEM tall is
‘The girl who is standing (she) is tall.’
Egyptian Arabic (ISO 639-3: arz, Glottolog: egyp1253)
In Egyptian Arabic, there is no anaphoric pronoun in the main clause coreferencing the relativized noun. This language is coded 0.
šuft ilwilaad illi gaabu lgawabaat
I.saw the.boys REL bring:3PL letters
‘I saw the boys who brought the letters.’ (Abdel-Massih 1979: 234–235)
Kam (ISO 639-3: kdx, Glottolog: kamm1249) and Bambara (ISO 639-3: bam, Glottolog: bamb1269)
Some other clear examples of languages with correlative relative clauses are Kam and Bambara.
A correlative relative clause in Kam:
àwàn ā míŋ ə́ŋꜜgwɔ́g â, ú də́ rə́ ɲì rīg.
king REL build:PFV house REL 3SG be with thing POSS
‘the king who built this house (he) is rich’ (Lesage 2020: 328)
Kam is coded 1 in Grambank.
A correlative relative clause in Bambara:
muso min taara, o ye fini san
woman REL leave 3SG PST cloth buy
‘The woman who left (she) bought the cloth.’ (Bird & Kante 1976: 9)
Bambara would be coded 1 in Grambank.
Dryer, Matthew S. 2013. Order of relative clause and noun. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Lehmann, Christian. 1986. On the typology of relative clauses. Linguistics 24(4). 663–680.
Abdel-Massih, Ernest T. 1979. A reference grammar of Egyptian Arabic. Ann Arbor: Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies, University of Michigan.
Bird, Charles & Mamadou Kante. 1976. An Kan Bamanakan Kalan: Intermediate Bambara. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Lesage, Jakob. 2020. A grammar and lexicon of Kam (àŋwɔ̀m), a Niger-Congo language of central eastern Nigeria. Paris: INALCO. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Srivastav, Veneeta. 1991. The syntax and semantics of correlatives. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 9(4). 637–686.
- GB327 Can the relative clause follow the noun?
- GB328 Can the relative clause precede the noun?
- GB329 Are there internally-headed relative clauses?
- GB331 Are there non-adjacent relative clauses?
Jakob Lesage