On reduced relatives with genitive subjects

What is the place of relatives with genitive subjects in a typology of relative clauses? Are they full or reduced, headed or free relatives? Can they appear pre- and postnominally? Can they be head-internal relatives? Are they finite or non-finite? Can they be restrictives and appositives? These are the questions that this thesis will address. Full relatives have nominative subjects. Thus, relatives with genitive subjects are not full relatives. Relatives with genitive subjects share, however, many properties with reduced relatives. Among others, both prohibit relative pronouns and complementizers. Both employ participles, i.e., verbs that lack tense but exhibit nominal properties. Both prohibit nominative subjects. Therefore, it will be argued that relative clauses with genitive subjects are reduced relatives. There exists, however, one difference between relative clauses with genitive subjects and standard reduced relatives. Only the former permits non-subject relativization. It will be argued that reduced relatives are headed by a NP and that the difference in permitting genitive subjects is caused by a difference in the case licensing mechanisms within this NP. Only if N can license structural genitive case can a language have relative clauses with genitive subjects. The verb in reduced relatives lacks tense. If the finite/non-finite distinction is based on the presence of tense, then reduced relatives are non-finite clauses.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Krause, Cornelia (Cornelia Ann), 1972-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sabine Iatridou, David Pesetsky and Ken Hale.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8195
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8195

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8195