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Universal 1598: headless relative clause ⇒ productive nominalization

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1598: headless relative clause ⇒ productive nominalization

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.
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
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    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’.

    1. May 2020

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