viee: relative clause

Accessibility hierarchy

The antecedent of the relative clause (that is, the noun that is modified by it) can in theory be the subject of the main clause, or its object, or any other verb argument. In many languages, however, especially rigidly left-branching, dependent-marking languages with prenominal relative clauses,^[1] there are major restrictions on the role the antecedent may have in the relative clause.
According to the classic study of Bernard Comrie,^[2] noun phrases can be ranked in the following order from most accessible to least accessible:

Nominative or absolutive
Accusative or ergative
Indirect object (e.g., "the man to whom I have written")
Oblique (adpositional) object (e.g., "the machine into which I put the coin")
Genitive (e.g., "the woman whose daughter is ill")
Comparative object (e.g., "the boy than whom I am smaller")

If a language can relativise positions lower in the accessibility hierarchy, it can always relativise positions higher up, but not vice versa. For example, Malagasy can relativise only subject and Chukchi only absolutive arguments, whilst Basque can relativise absolutives, ergatives and indirect objects, but not obliques or genitives or objects of comparatives.
Languages which cannot relativise directly on noun phrases low in the accessibility hierarchy can sometimes use alternative voices to "raise" the relevant noun phrase so that it can be relativised. The most common example is the use of applicative voices to relativise obliques, but in such languages as Chukchi antipassives are used to raise ergative arguments to absolutive.

Major types of relative clause

Across the world's languages, linguists have identified four major types of relative clause. These are typically listed in order of the degree to which the role of the antecedent in the relative clause is represented as follows:

Gap strategy or gapped relative clause
Relative pronoun
Pronoun retention
Nonreduction

Gapped relative clause

In this type of relative clause, there is simply a gap between the antecedent noun phrase and the relative clause modifying it, without any marker, or in some cases with a marker that can be best described as a complementizer.
This is the most common type of relative clause, especially in verb-final languages with prenominal relative clauses, but is also widespread among languages with postnominal externally headed relative clauses. Often the form of the verb is different from that in main clauses and is to some degree nominalised. In some languages, such as English, the complementizer may be non-overt, yielding a reduced relative clause.^[3]^[4]
In non-verb-final languages, apart from languages like Thai and Vietnamese with very strong politeness distinctions in their grammars, gapped relative clauses tend however to be restricted to positions high up in the accessibility hierarchy. With obliques and genitives, non-verb-final languages that do not have politeness restrictions on pronoun use tend to use pronoun retention.

Relative pronoun type

In this type of relative clause, the relative clause is introduced by a pronoun that marks the antecedent for its role in the relative clause. This marking distinguishes it from the previous type where the role of the antecedent is not evident. All languages which use relative pronouns have them in sentence-initial position: though one could conceivably imagine a clause-final relative pronoun analogous to an adverbial subordinator in that position, they are unknown.
Relative pronouns in the strict sense are almost entirely confined to European languages, where they are widespread except among the most conservative Celtic family. The influence of Spanish has led to their adaption by a very small number of Native American languages, of which the best-known are the Keresan languages.^[5]

Pronoun retention type

In this type, the position relativised is indicated by means of a personal pronoun in the same syntactic position as would ordinarily be occupied by a noun phrase of that type in the main clause. It is equivalent to saying "the watch that I bought it" in English (where the last "it" is ungrammatical).
Pronoun retention is very frequently used for relativisation of inaccessible positions on the accessibility hierarchy in non-verb-final languages of Africa and Asia. It is similarly used by the Celtic languages of northwest Europe. However, only a very small number of languages, of which the best known is Yoruba, have pronoun retention as their sole grammatical type of relative clause.

Nonreduction type

In the nonreduction type, unlike the other three, the antecedent is a full-fledged noun phrase within an independent clause which is linked by various means to the remainder of the sentence. This can either be a special relative verb (as with some Native American languages), or a relative particle, as with the correlative clauses which are the strategy used by Hindi and Bambara. This correlative strategy is equivalent to saying "Which girl you see over there, she is my daughter", whilst the internally headed structure found in such languages as Navajo is equivalent to the (ungrammatical) English structure "[You see the girl over there] is my friend."
Dialects of some European languages, such as Italian, do use the nonreduction type in forms equivalent to English "The man just passed us by, he introduced me to the chancellor here." In general, however, nonreduction is restricted to verb-final languages, though more common among those that are head-marking.

Examples

Indo-European languages

English

Main article: English relative clauses

In English, a relative clause follows the noun it modifies. It is generally indicated by a relative pronoun at the start of the clause, although sometimes simply by word order. The choice of relative pronoun, or choice to omit one, can be affected by whether the clause modifies a human or non-human noun, by whether the clause is restrictive or not, and by the role (subject, direct object, or the like) of the relative pronoun in the relative clause. In English, as in some other languages (such as French; see below), non-restrictive relative clauses are set off with commas, but restrictive ones are not:

I met a man and a woman yesterday. The woman, who had a thick French accent, was very pretty.
I met two women yesterday, one with a thick French accent and one with a mild Italian one. The woman who had the thick French accent was very pretty.

As regards relative clauses, English has two particularities that are unique among the Germanic languages:

In other Germanic languages, if a relative pronoun is the object of a preposition in the relative clause, then the preposition always appears at the start of the clause, before the relative pronoun. In English, the preposition will often appear where it would appear if the clause were an independent clause — in other words, the relative pronoun "strands" it when it moves to the start of the clause. It used to be common to regard this as a grammatical error (see: linguistic prescription) but in fact it has been a standard feature of the language since the times of Middle English.
In other Germanic languages, a relative pronoun is always necessary. In English, however, it may be suppressed in a restrictive clause (as in "The man we met was very friendly"), provided it would not serve as the subject of the main verb. When this is done, if in the unsuppressed counterpart the relative pronoun is the object of a preposition in the relative clause, then said preposition is always "stranded" in the manner described above; it is never moved to the start of the clause.

French

The system of relative pronouns in French is as complicated as but similar in many ways to the system in English.
When the pronoun is to act as the direct object of the relative clause, que is generally used, although lequel, which is inflected for grammatical gender and number, is sometimes used in order to give more precision. For example, any of the following is correct and would translate to "I talked to his/her father and mother, whom I already knew":

J'ai parlé avec son père et sa mère, laquelle (f. sing.) je connaissais déjà.

J'ai parlé avec son père et sa mère, lesquels (m. pl.) je connaissais déjà.

J'ai parlé avec son père et sa mère, que je connaissais déjà.

However, in the first sentence, "whom I already knew" refers only to the mother; in the second, it refers to both parents; and in the third, as in the English sentence, it could refer either only to the mother, or to both parents.
When the pronoun is to act as the subject of the relative clause, qui is generally used, though as before, lequel may be used instead for greater precision. (This is less common than the use of lequel with direct objects, however, since verbs in French often reflect the grammatical number of their subjects.)
When the pronoun is to act in a possessive sense, where the preposition de (of/from) would normally be used, the pronoun dont ("whose") is used, but does not act as a determiner for the noun "possessed":

J'ai parlé avec une femme dont je travaille avec le fils. ("I spoke with a woman whose son I work with." - lit., "I spoke with a woman of whom I work with the son.")

This construction is also used in non-possessive cases where the pronoun replaces an object marked by de:

C'est l'homme dont j'ai parlé. ("That's the man of whom I spoke.")

More generally, in modern French, dont can signal the topic of the following clause, without replacing anything in this clause:

C'est un homme dont je crois qu'il doit très bien gagner sa vie. ("That's a man about whom I believe that he must make a lot of money.")

When the pronoun is to act as the object of a preposition (other than when dont is used), lequel is generally used, though qui can be used if the antecedent is human. The preposition always appears before the pronoun, and the prepositions de and à (at/to) contract with lequel to form duquel and auquel, or with lesquel(le)s to form desquel(le)s and auxquel(le)s.

German

Aside from their highly inflected forms, German relative pronouns are less complicated than English. There are two varieties. The more common one is based on the definite article der, die, das, but with distinctive forms in the genitive (dessen, deren) and in the dative plural (denen). Historically this is related to English that. The second, which is more literary and used for emphasis, is the relative use of welcher, welche, welches, comparable with English which. As in most Germanic languages, including Old English, both of these inflect according to gender, case and number. They take their gender and number from the noun they modify, but the case from their function in their own clause.

Das Haus, in dem ich wohne, ist sehr alt.

The house in which I live is very old.

The relative pronoun dem is neuter singular to agree with Haus, but dative because it follows a preposition in its own clause. On the same basis, it would be possible to substitute the pronoun welchem.
However, German uses the uninflecting was ('what') as a relative pronoun when the antecedent is alles, etwas or nichts ('everything', 'something', 'nothing'.).

Alles, was Jack macht, gelingt ihm.

Everything that Jack does is a success.

In German, all relative clauses are marked with commas.

Spanish

See Relative pronouns in the Spanish pronouns article.

Latin

In Latin, relative clauses follow the noun phrases they modify, and are always introduced using relative pronouns. Relative pronouns, like other pronouns in Latin, agree with their antecedents in gender and number, but not in case: a relative pronoun's case reflects its role in the relative clause it introduces, while its antecedent's case reflects the antecedent's role in the clause that contains the relative clause. (Nonetheless, it is possible for the pronoun and antecedent to be in the same case.) For example:

Urbēs, quae sunt magnae, videntur. (The cities, which are large, are being seen.)

Urbēs, quās vīdī, erant magnae. (The cities, which I saw, were large.)

In the former example, urbēs and quae both function as subjects in their respective clauses, so both are in the nominative case; and due to gender and number agreement, both are feminine and plural. In the latter example, both are still feminine and plural, and urbēs is still in the nominative case, but quae has been replaced by quās, its accusative-case counterpart, to reflect its role as the direct object of vīdī.
For more information on the forms of Latin relative pronouns, see the section on relative pronouns in the article on Latin declension.

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek follows the same rule as Latin.

οἱ πόλεις, οὓς εἶδον, μεγάλαι εἰσιν.

hoi póleis, hoùs eîdon, megálai eisin.

The cities that I saw were large.

The Ancient Greek relative pronoun ὅς, ἥ, ὅ (hós, hḗ, hó) is unrelated to the Latin word, since it derives from Proto-Indo-European *yos: in Proto-Greek, y before a vowel usually changed to h (debuccalization). Cognates include Sanskrit yas, yā, yad (where o changed to short a).^[6]
The Greek definite article ὁ, ἡ, τό (ho, hē, tó) has a different origin, since it is related to Sanskrit sa, sā and Latin is-tud.^[7]

Slavic languages

Most Slavic languages use exactly the same principle as Latin does. The following sentences are the Latin examples translated to Croatian (the same sentences also apply to Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin):

Gradovi, koji su veliki, se vide. (The cities, which are large, are being seen.)

Gradovi, koje sam vidio, su bili veliki. (The cities, which I saw, were large.)

In the first sentence, koji is in nominative, and in the second koje is in accusative. Both words are two case forms of the same relative pronoun, that is inflicted for gender (here: masculine), number (here: plural), and case.

Celtic languages

Semitic languages

Hebrew

In Biblical Hebrew, relative clauses were headed with the word asher, which could be either a relative pronoun or a relativizer. In later times, asher became interchangeable with the prefix she- (which is also used as a conjunction, with the sense of English that), and in Modern Hebrew, this use of she- is much more common than asher, except in some formal, archaic, or poetic writing. In meaning, the two are interchangeable; they are used regardless of whether the clause is modifying a human, regardless of their grammatical case in the relative clause, and regardless of whether the clause is restrictive.
Further, because Hebrew does not generally use its word for is, she- is used to distinguish adjective phrases used in epithet from adjective phrases used in attribution:

Ha-kise l'-yad-kha. ("The chair is next to you." - lit., "The-chair [is] to-hand-your.")

Ha-kise she-l'-yad-kha shavur. ("The chair next to you is broken." - lit., "The-chair that-[is]-to-hand-your [is] broken.")

(This use of she- does not occur with simple adjectives, as Hebrew has a different way of making that distinction. For example, Ha-kise adom means "The chair [is] red," while Ha-kise ha-adom shavur means "The red chair is broken" - literally, "The chair the red [is] broken.")
Since 1994, the official rules of Modern Hebrew (as determined by the Academy of the Hebrew Language) have stated that relative clauses are to be punctuated in Hebrew the same way as in English (described above). That is, non-restrictive clauses are to be set off with commas, while restrictive clauses are not:

Ha-kise, she-ata yoshev alav, shavur. ("The chair, which you are sitting on, is broken.")

Ha-kise she-ata yoshev alav shavur. ("The chair that you are sitting on is broken.")

Nonetheless, many, perhaps most, speakers of Modern Hebrew still use the pre-1994 rules, which were based on the German rules (described above). Except for the simple adjective-phrase clauses described above, these speakers set off all relative clauses, restrictive or not, with commas:

Ha-kise, she-ata yoshev alav, shavur. ("The chair that you are sitting on is broken," or "The chair, which you are sitting on, is broken.")

One major difference between relative clauses in Hebrew and those in (for example) English is that in Hebrew, what might be called the "regular" pronoun is not always suppressed in the relative clause. To reuse the prior example:

Ha-kise, she-ata yoshev alav, shavur. (lit., "The chair, which you are sitting on it, [is] broken.")

More specifically, if this pronoun is the subject of the relative clause, it is always suppressed. If it is the direct object, then it is usually suppressed, though it is also correct to leave it in. (If it is suppressed, then the special preposition et, used to mark the direct object, is suppressed as well.) If it is the object of a preposition, it must be left in, because in Hebrew - unlike in English - a preposition cannot appear without its object. When the pronoun is left in, she- might more properly be called a relativizer than a relative pronoun.
The Hebrew relativizer she- ‘that’ "might be a shortened form of the Hebrew relativizer ‘asher ‘that’, which is related to Akkadian ‘ashru ‘place’ (cf. Semitic *‘athar) Alternatively, Hebrew ‘asher derived from she-, or it was a convergence of Proto-Semitic dhu (cf. Aramaic dī) and ‘asher [...] Whereas Israeli she- functions both as complementizer and relativizer, ashér can only function as a relativizer."^[8]

Arabic

In Literary Arabic there is a relative pronoun (in Arabic: الاسم الموصول al-ism al-mawṣūl) allaḏī (masculine singular), feminine singular allatī, masculine plural allaḏīna, feminine plural allawātī, masculine dual allaḏānī (nominative) / allaḏayni (accusative and genitive), feminine dual allatānī (nom.) / allataynī (acc. and gen.).
Its usage has two specific rules: it agrees with the antecedent in gender, number and case, and it is used only if the antecedent is definite. If the antecedent is indefinite, no relative pronoun is used. The former is called jumlat sila (conjunctive sentence) while the latter is called jumlat sifa (descriptive sentence).

الولد الذي رأيته في الصف أمس غائب اليوم

al-waladu (a)lladhi ra’aytuhu fī (a)ṣ-ṣaffi ’amsi ğā’ibun al-yawma

"The boy I saw in class yesterday is missing today". (relative pronoun present)

هذا ولد رأيته في الصف أمس

hāḏā waladun ra’aytu-hu fī (a)ṣ-ṣaffi ’amsi

"This is a boy I saw in class yesterday". (relative pronoun absent)

In Demotic Arabic the multiple forms of the relative pronoun have been levelled in favour of a single form, a simple conjunction, which in most dialects is illi, and is never omitted. So in Palestinian Arabic the above sentences would be:

alwalad illi shuftō fi (a)ssaff embārih ghāyeb alyōm
hāda walad illi shuftō fi (a)ssaff embārih

As in Hebrew, the regular pronoun referring to the antecedent is repeated in the relative clause - literally, "the boy whom I saw him in class..." (the -hu in ra'aituhu and the -ō in shuftō). The rules of suppression in Arabic are identical to those of Hebrew: obligatory suppression in the case that the pronoun is the subject of the relative clause, obligatory retention in the case that the pronoun is the object of a preposition, and at the discretion of the speaker if the pronoun is the direct object. The only difference from Hebrew is that, in the case of the direct object, it is preferable to retain the pronoun rather than suppress it.

Japonic languages

Japanese

Japanese does not employ relative pronouns to relate relative clauses to their antecedents. Instead, the relative clause directly modifies the noun phrase as an attributive verb, occupying the same syntactic space as an attributive adjective (before the noun phrase).

この　おいしい　天ぷら

kono oishii tempura

"this delicious tempura"

姉が　作った　天ぷら

ane-ga tsukutta tempura

sister-SUBJ make-PAST tempura

"the tempura [that] my sister made"

天ぷらを　食べた　人

tempura-o tabeta hito

tempura-OBJ eat-PAST person

"the person who ate the tempura"

In fact, since so-called i-adjectives in Japanese are technically intransitive stative verbs, it can be argued that the structure of the first example (with an adjective) is the same as the others. A number of "adjectival" meanings, in Japanese, are customarily shown with relative clauses consisting solely of a verb or a verb complex:

光っている　ビル

hikatte-iru biru

lit-be building

"an illuminated building"

濡れている　犬

nurete-iru inu

be_wet-be dog

"a wet dog"

Often confusing to speakers of languages which use relative pronouns are relative clauses which would in their own languages require a preposition with the pronoun to indicate the semantic relationship among the constituent parts of the phrase.

紅茶を　淹れる　ために　お湯を　沸かした　やかん

kōcha-o ireru tame ni oyu-o wakashita yakan

tea-OBJ make purpose for hot-water-OBJ boiled kettle

"the kettle I boiled water in for tea"

Here, the preposition "in" is missing from the Japanese ("missing" in the sense that the corresponding postposition would be used with the main clause verb in Japanese) Common sense indicates what the meaning is in this case, but the "missing preposition" can sometimes create ambiguity.

天ぷらを　作った　人

tempura-o tsukutta hito

tempura-OBJ made person

(1) "the person who made the tempura"

(2) "the person [someone] made the tempura for"

In this case, (1) is the context-free interpretation of choice, but (2) is possible with the proper context.

僕が　記事を　書いた　レストラン

boku-ga kiji-o kaita resutoran

I-SUBJ article-OBJ wrote restaurant

(1) "a restaurant about which I wrote an article"

(2) "a restaurant in which I wrote an article"

Without more context, both (1) and (2) are equally viable interpretations of the Japanese.
Note: Spaces are not ordinarily used in Japanese, but they are supplemented here to facilitate parsing by non-speakers of the language.

Caucasian languages

Georgian

In Georgian, there are two strategies for forming relative clauses. The first is similar to that of English or Latin: the modified noun is followed by a relativizer that inflects for its embedded case and may take a postposition. The relativized noun may be preceded by a determiner.

(ის)	კაცი,	რომელიც	პარკში	წავიდა,	გაზეთს	კითხულობს
(is)	ḳac-i,	romel-i-c	ṗarḳ=ši	c̣avida,	gazet-s	ḳitxulobs
(that.NOM)	man-NOM	which-NOM-REL	park=to	he.went	newspaper-DAT	he.reads.it
"the man who went to the park is reading the newspaper"

(ის)	ქალი,	რომელსაც	წერილს	დავუწერ,	თბილისში	ცხოვრობს
(is)	kal-i,	romel-sa-c	c̣eril-s	davuc̣er,	tbilis=ši	cxovrobs
(that.NOM)	woman-NOM	which-DAT-REL	letter-DAT	I.will.write.it.to.her	Tbilisi-in	she.lives
"the woman who I will write a letter to lives in Tbilisi"

ნინომ	(ის)	სკამი,	რომელზეც	ვზივარ,	იყიდა
Nino-m	(is)	sḳam-i,	romel=ze-c	vzivar,	iqida
Nino-ERG	(that.NOM)	chair-NOM	which=on-REL	I.sit	she.bought.it
"Nino bought the chair I am sitting in"

A second, more colloquial, strategy is marked by the invariant particle რომ rom. This particle is generally the second word of the clause, and since it does not decline, is often followed by the appropriately cased third-person pronoun to show the relativized noun's role in the embedded clause. A determiner precedes the relativized noun, which is also usually preceded by the clause as a whole.

წერილს	რომ	მას	დავუწერ,	ის	ქალი	თბილისში	ცხოვრობს
c̣̣eril-s	rom	mas	davuc̣̣er,	is	kal-i	tbilis=ši	cxovrobs
letter-DAT	REL	3S.DAT	I.will.write.it.to.her	that.NOM	woman-NOM	Tbilisi-in	she.lives
"the woman who I will write a letter to lives in Tbilisi"

მე	რომ	მასზე	ვზივარ,	ის	სკამი	ნინომ	იყიდა
me	rom	mas=ze	vzivar,	is	sḳam-i	Nino-m	iqida
1S	REL	3S.DAT=on	I.sit	that.NOM	chair-NOM	Nino-ERG	she.bought.it
"Nino bought the chair I am sitting in"

Such relative clauses may be interally-headed. In such cases, the modified noun moves into the clause, taking the appropriate declension for the its role therein (thus eliminating the need for the third person pronouns in the above examples), and leaves behind the determiner (which now functions as a pronoun) in the matrix clause.

ქალს	რომ	წერილს	დავუწერ,	ის	თბილისში	ცხოვრობს
kal-s	rom	c̣̣eril-s	davuc̣̣er,	is	tbilis=ši	cxovrobs
woman-DAT	REL	letter-DAT	I.will.write.it.to.her	3S.NOM	Tbilisi-in	she.lives
"the woman who I will write a letter to lives in Tbilisi"

Austronesian languages

Tagalog

Tagalog uses the gapping strategy to form relative clauses, with the complementiser, na / =ng 'that', separating the head, which is the noun being modified, from the actual relative clause. In (1a) below, lalaki 'man' serves as the head, while nagbigay ng bigas sa bata 'gave rice to the child' is the relative clause.

(1)	a.	lalaki	=ng	nagbigay	____	ng	bigas	sa	bata
		man	comp	act.gave		acc	rice	dat	child
		"man that gave rice to the child"
	b.	Nagbigay	ang	lalaki	ng	bigas	sa	bata.
		act.gave	nom	man	acc	rice	dat	child
		"The man gave rice to the child."

The gap inside the relative clause corresponds to the position that the noun acting as the head would have normally taken, had it been in a declarative sentence. In (1a), the gap is in subject position within the relative clause. This corresponds to the subject position occupied by ang lalaki 'the man' in the declarative sentence in (1b).
There is a constraint in Tagalog on the position from which a noun can be relativised and in which a gap can appear: A noun has to be the subject within the relative clause in order for it to be relativised. The phrases in (2) are ungrammatical because the nouns that have been relativised are not the subjects of their respective relative clauses. In (2a), the gap is in direct object position, while in (2b), the gap is in indirect object position.

(2)	a.	*	bigas	na	nagbigay	ang	lalaki	____	sa	bata
			rice	comp	act.gave	nom	man		dat	child
			for: "rice that the man gave to the child"
	b.	*	bata	=ng	nagbigay	ang	lalaki	ng	bigas	____
			rice	comp	act.gave	nom	man	acc	rice
			for: "child that the man gave rice to"

The correct Tagalog translations for the intended meanings in (2) are found in (3), where the verbs have been passivised in order to raise the logical direct object in (3a) and the logical indirect object in (3b) to subject position. (Tagalog can have more than one passive voice form for any given verb.)

(3)	a.	bigas	na	ibinigay	ng	lalaki	sa	bata
		rice	comp	psv.gave	gen	man	dat	child
		"rice that the man gave to the child"
		(or: "rice that was given to the child by the man")
	b.	bata	=ng	binigyan	ng	lalaki	ng	bigas
		child	comp	gave.psv	gen	man	acc	rice
		"child that the man gave rice to"
		(or: "child that was given rice to by the man")

Tagalog relative clauses can be left-headed, as in (1a) and (3), right-headed, as in (4), or internally headed, as in (5).

(4)	nagbigay	ng	bigas	sa	bata	na	lalaki
	act.gave	acc	rice	dat	child	comp	man
	"man that gave rice to the child"

(5)	a.	nagbigay	na	lalaki	ng	bigas	sa	bata
		act.gave	comp	man	acc	rice	dat	child
		"man that gave rice to the child"
	b.	nagbigay	ng	bigas	na	lalaki	sa	bata
		act.gave	acc	rice	comp	man	dat	child
		"man that gave rice to the child"

In (4), the head, lalaki 'man', is found after or to the right of the relative clause, nagbigay ng bigas sa bata 'gave rice to the child'. In (5), the head is found in some position inside the relative clause. Note that when the head appears to the right of or internally to the relative clause, the complementiser appears to the left of the head. When the head surfaces to the left of the relative clause, the complementiser surfaces to the right of the head.
There are exceptions to the subjects-only constraint to relativisation mentioned above. The first involves relativising the possessor of a noun phrase within the relative clause.

(6)	bata	=ng	nasugatan	ang	daliri	____
	child	comp	injured.psv	nom	finger
	"child whose finger was injured"

In (6), the head, bata 'child', is the owner of the injured finger. Note that ang daliri 'the finger' is the subject of the verb, nasugatan 'was injured'.
Another exception involves relativising the oblique noun phrase.

(7)	a.	ospital	(na)	kung	saan	ipinanganak	si	Juan
		hospital	comp	q-comp	where	psv.bore	nom	Juan
		"house where Juan was born"
	b.	Nagtanong	siya	kung	saan	ipinanganak	si	Juan.
		act.asked	3sg.nom	q-comp	where	psv.bore	nom	Juan
		"She asked where Juan was born."
	c.	Ipinanganak	si	Juan	sa	ospital.
		psv.bore	nom	Juan	loc	hospital
		"Juan was born at the hospital."
	d.	Saan	ipinanganak	si	Juan?
		where	psv.bore	nom	Juan
		"Where was Juan born?"

When an oblique noun phrase is relativised, as in (7a), na 'that', the complementiser that separates the head from the relative clause, is optional. The relative clause itself is also composed differently. In the examples in (1a), and in (3) to (6), the relative clauses are simple declaratives that contain a gap. However, the relative clause in (7a) looks more like an indirect question, complete with the interrogative complementiser, kung 'if', and a pre-verbally positioned WH-word like saan 'where', as in (7b). The sentence in (7c) is the declarative version of the relative clause in (7a), illustrating where the head, ospital 'hospital', would have been "before" relativisation. The question in (7d) shows the direct question version of the subordinate indirect question in (7b).

Andean languages

Aymara

thuquñap	punchu
dance-INF-3POSS	poncho
"the poncho he is dancing with"

y	dyn	a	welais
the	man	DIR-REL	I saw
"the man whom I saw"

y	dyn	sy'n	blewog	iawn
the	man	DIR-REL + is	hairy	very
"the man who is very hairy"

y	dyn	piau	castell	anferth
the	man	DIR-REL + owns	castle	huge
"the man who owns a huge castle"

y	dyn	y	rhois	y	llyfr	iddo
the	man	IND-REL	I gave	the	book	to him
"the man to whom I gave the book"

viee

Rabu, 18 Mei 2011

relative clause