UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl)
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)
The syntax of relativization
de Vries, M.
Publication date
2002
Link to publication
Citation for published version (APA):
de Vries, M. (2002). The syntax of relativization. LOT.
General rights
It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).
Disclaimer/Complaints regulations
If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
Conclusion n
InIn this thesis I have tried to gain insight into the syntax of relativization. As a necessaryy background I have compiled data from several authors and provided a systematicc typology on most aspects of the relative construction. Several competing syntacticc theories have been defined and evaluated on the basis of possible derivationss of the syntactic main types of relatives and their word order variants, and onn the basis of many relevant properties of relative constructions, mainly concerning thee relation between the antecedent and the gap. I have concluded that the so-called promotionn theory is the most promising. It combines two independent ideas: i) the relativee clause is the complement of the external determiner, and ii) the head noun is raisedd from within the relative clause. This theory provides the possibility of treating alll main types of relative constructions as syntactically closely related. I have argued thatt all types of relatives involve roughly the same syntactic components. When implementedd within a derivational grammar, the differences can be traced back to overt/covertt distinctions, that is, differences in the syntactic feature checking procedure.. The features that are relevant in this respect are wh, Case, and <)>-features. Furthermore,, there are differences in pied piping, which is accounted for in terms of covertt feature movement. Furthermore, I have investigated how the presence (and absence)) of various relative elements can be represented within this framework. On thee basis of the typological data mentioned above, a fine-grained classification of relativee elements has been presented.
Nextt to the discussion concerning the core syntax of relativization, I have tried too provide an independently motivated approach to three broad phenomena which havee been claimed to be potentially problematic for the promotion theory of relatives.. These are apposition, extraposition and possession. Concerning apposition, II have compiled a large collection of properties of appositive relatives, especially thosee in which they deviate from restrictives. Theoretically, I have argued that appositionn in general is specifying coordination. This allows us to generalize over appositionss and appositive relatives. The latter are analysed as so-called false free relativess that are specifying conjuncts to the 'antecedent'. This theory of apposition iss independent of the precise theory on relativization. Therefore I have argued - in consistencee with the first part of this book - that there is promotion (of an empty head)) within the false free relative. Thus we can generalize over restrictive and appositivee relatives, and attribute die differences to the specific configuration in whichh appositives occur. The concept of specifying coordination gains strength since itt turns out to be central to the theory of extraposition as well. I have shown at length thatt an analysis in terms of specifying coordination plus ellipsis is to be preferred over
rightwardrightward movement, adjunction and stranding approaches to extraposition. The analysiss proposed can be easily generalized to all instances of extraposition.
Crucially,, the promotion theory of relatives can be maintained here as well: as in appositivee structures, promotion is performed within the second conjunct. Finally, I havee addressed the possessive (relative) construction, which is related to (heavy) piedd piping. I have focused on the Germanic languages here. It is shown that all
352 2 C O N C L U S I O N N
possessivee configurations are syntactically derived from the periphrastic genitive. Thee analysis for possessive relatives is an interesting interplay between the theory establishedd for simple possessive structures and the promotion theory of relative clauses. .
Inn conclusion, the syntax of relativization, when decomposed into the syntactic componentss as argued for, is maximally general: it now covers all syntactic and semanticc main types of relatives. The differences between the many types of relativess can be attributed to parametrical overt/covert distinctions, and to the specificc configuration in which a relative occurs.
