Universal #1602

Legacy number: 1602

 Number  1598
 Original  Languages with headless relative clauses tend to have powerful and productive patterns of nominalization which are at least superficially similar to relative clauses.
 Standardized  IF there are headless relative clauses, THEN there is a productive pattern of nominalization.
 Formula  headless relative clause ⇒ productive nominalization
 Keywords  relative clause, internal (= replacive, =headless), nominalization
 Domain  morphology, syntax
 Type  implication
 Status  achronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  Southwest American languages from 6 families: Athabaskan, Keresan, Tanoan, Uto-Aztecan, Yuman, Zunian
 Source  Gorbet 1977: 273

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Discussion
Notes
1. The HEADLESS RELATIVE CLAUSE is characterized by three properties:A. it is a relative clause functionally and semantically;B. it lacks a syntactic head noun;C. a lexical instance of the semantic head appears as a noun (or more substantially expanded NP) in the subordinate clause. 2. Downing (#679) calls such relative clauses ‘replacive’, Keenan (#1595) calls them ‘internal RelCs’, Gil (2000) and Cole (#1596, 1597) refer to them as to ‘internally-headed’.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. The HEADLESS RELATIVE CLAUSE is characterized by three properties:
A. it is a relative clause functionally and semantically;
B. it lacks a syntactic head noun;
C. a lexical instance of the semantic head appears as a noun (or more substantially expanded NP) in the subordinate clause.

2. Downing (<a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=679"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">) calls such relative clauses 'replacive', Keenan (<a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=1595"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">) calls them 'internal RelCs', Gil 2000 and Cole (<a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=1596"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">, <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_idr=1597"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">) refer to them as to 'internally-headed'.