Syntactic Typology of Relative Clauses (Dryer 2005, WALS, in LEAR) Handout.1
Syntactic Typology of Relative Clauses (Dryer 2005, WALS, in LEAR) Handout.1
Syntactic Typology of Relative Clauses (Dryer 2005, WALS, in LEAR) Handout.1
(1)a. The [ book [RC that we read ]] English (externally headed postnominal)
b. [[RC nuna ranti-shqa-n] bestya].. Quechua (Cole 1987,279) (externally headed prenominal)
man buy-PERF-3 horse.NOM..
‘the horse the man bought..’
c. [[RC nuna bestya-ta ranti-shqa-n]](alli bestya-m) Quechua (Cole 1987,279) (internally headed)
man horse.ACC buy-PERF-3 good horse..
‘the horse the man bought (was a good horse)’
f. [RC jo laRkii khaRii hai] vo laRkii lambii hai Hindi (Dayal 1996) (correlative)
which girl standing is that girl tall is
‘The girl who is standing is tall’
g. ŋatjulu-lu ø-na yankiri pantu-nu, kutja-lpa ŋapa ŋa-nu (Hale 1976,78) (adjoined)
I-erg AUX emu spear-past, COMP-AUX water drink-past
‘I speared the emu which was/while it was drinking water’
A left-right asymmetry.
(3) Greenberg’s (1963) Universal 20: “When any or all of the items (demonstrative, numeral, and
descriptive adjective) precede the noun, they are always found in that order. If they follow, the
order is either the same or its exact opposite.”
(4)a Dem > Num > A > N Chinese, English, Georgian, Nama, Ket, Lezgian, Turkish,…
b *A > Num > Dem > N 0
c N> Dem > Num > A Kikuyu, Turkana, Rendille, Nkore-Kiga, Noni, Abu‘, Arbore…
d N > A > Num > Dem Amele, Gungbe, Igbo, Mao Naga, Swahili, Yoruba, Selepet,…
Order of (attributive) adjectives: (Hetzron 1978; Sproat and Shih 1991; Cinque 1994, Scott 2002)
(5)a Asize > Acolor > Anationality > N (English, Bulgarian…)
b * Anationality > Acolor > Asize > N 0
c N > Asize > Acolor > Anationality (Welsh, Irish, Maltese…) F
Order of circumstantial PPs (Boisson 1981, Cinque 2002, Hinterhölzl 2002, Schweikert 2005)
(7)a Temp > Loc > Manner V (Turkish, Nambikuara,.. - Kornfilt p.c., Kroeker (2001,3))
b *Manner > Loc > Temp > V 0
0B
Order of (speech act) Mood, Tense, and Aspect morphemes (Cinque to appear)
(8)a Mood Tense Aspect V (Nama, Yoruba,…)
b *Aspect Tense Mood V 0
c V Mood Tense Aspect (Comox,..)
d V Aspect Tense Mood (Korean, Malayalam,…)