Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T23:43:18.254Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Revisiting the system of English relative clauses: structure, semantics, discourse functionality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2017

FRANCIS CORNISH
FRANCIS CORNISH*
Affiliation:
Laboratoire CLLE-ERSS, Maison de la Recherche, Université de Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, 5 Allée Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The goal of this article is to uncover the system underlying three types of English relative clauses, and to characterise their distinctive uses in discourse: NP-integrated ones, namely restrictive and ‘a-restrictive’ relative clauses, and non-integrated ones, represented by non-restrictive relatives.

The area at issue is central, since understanding the functioning of these constructions requires reference to the fundamental interface between grammar (language system) and discourse (language use). The discourse functions of the three subtypes of relatives are claimed to be underlain by their intrinsic morphosyntactic and semantic properties. A major aim is to highlight the relative degree of ‘communicative dynamism’ of each subtype of relative clause, in terms of its respective contribution to the construction of discourse.

In doing so, the article focuses on the distinctive properties of presupposed as well as non-presupposed restrictive relatives, and of definite as well as indefinite NPs containing integrated relatives more generally. Along the way, it critically examines certain controversial conceptions of the structural and functional features of the constructions at issue, and, in particular, the claim that there is no essential distinction to be drawn between ‘integrated’ and phrase-external relative clause subtypes at all.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , November 2018 , pp. 431 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1I would like to thank Jim Miller, Georges Kleiber, Daniel García Velasco, Fabio Del Prete and Ming-Ming Pu for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article, as well as the two anonymous ELL reviewers for their remarks on the initial submission, and in particular Bernd Kortmann.

References

Aarts, Bas. 2013. English syntax and argumentation, 4th edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Arkoh, Ruby & Matthewson, Lisa. 2013. A familiar definite article in Akan. Lingua 123, 1–30.Google Scholar
Bache, Carl & Jakobsen, Leif Kvistgaard. 1980. On the distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in modern English. Lingua 52, 243–67.Google Scholar
Benveniste, Emile. 1966. Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Bhat, D. N. S. 2004. Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward. 1999. Grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro & McConnell-Ginet, Sally. 1990. Meaning and grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cornish, Francis. 2009. Inter-sentential anaphora and coherence relations in discourse: A perfect match. Language Sciences 31 (5), 572–92.Google Scholar
Cornish, Francis & Orvig, Anne Salazar. 2016. A critical look at the notion ‘pro-form’: Evidence from indexical markers, spoken discourse and (French) child language. Language Sciences 54, 58–76.Google Scholar
Dehé, Nicole. 2014. Parentheticals in spoken English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Francesca, Del Gobbo. 2003. Appositives and quantification. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 9.1, 73–88.Google Scholar
Denison, David & Hundt, Marianne. 2013. Defining relatives. Journal of English Linguistics 41 (2), 135–67.Google Scholar
Depraetere, Ilse. 1996. Foregrounding in English relative clauses. Linguistics 34, 699–731.Google Scholar
Dik, Simon C. 1997. The theory of Functional Grammar, part II: Complex and derived constructions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Emonds, Joseph. 1979. Appositive relatives have no properties. Linguistic Inquiry 10 (2), 211–43.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 2007. Information structure: The syntax-discourse interface. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fabb, Nigel. 1990. The difference between English restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Journal of Linguistics 26, 57–78.Google Scholar
Fox, Barbara & Thompson, Sandra A.. 1990. A discourse explanation of the grammar of relative clauses in English conversation. Language 66 (2), 297–316.Google Scholar
‘The Great American Sandwich’: a recorded conversation that formed part of the SSRC-funded project HR5152, The Syntax of Scottish English (1977–1980).Google Scholar
Hannay, Mike & Keizer, Evelien. 2005. A discourse treatment of English non-restrictive nominal appositions in Functional Discourse Grammar. In Mackenzie, J. Lachlan & de los Ángeles Gómez-González, María (eds.), Studies in Functional Discourse Grammar, 159–94. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey K.. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Pauline. 1989. Issues and results in syntactic theory. MS, Program in Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Brown University.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Philip. J. 1998. Restrictive vs. non-restrictive relative clauses in Hausa: Where morphosyntax and semantics meet. Studies in African Linguistics 27 (2), 199–238.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1927. A modern English grammar on historical principles, part III: Syntax, vol. 2. London: Allen & Unwin; Copenhagen: Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Keizer, Evelien. 2012. English proforms in Functional Discourse Grammar. Language Sciences 34 (4), 400–20.Google Scholar
Larreya, Pierre & Rivière, Claude. 2010. Grammaire explicative de l'anglais, 4th edn. Paris: Pearson Education France.Google Scholar
Loock, Rudy. 2007. Appositive relative clauses and their functions in discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 39, 336–62.Google Scholar
Loock, Rudy. 2010. Appositive relative clauses in English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Malan, Naomi. 1999. La proposition relative en anglais contemporain: Une approche pragmatique. Gap and Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
McCawley, James. D. 1981. The syntax and semantics of English relative clauses. Lingua 53, 99–149.Google Scholar
McCloskey, James. 1979. Model-theoretic semantics and transformational grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Miller, Jim. 2008. An introduction to English syntax, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Jim & Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest, M. M.. 2006. Spoken and written language. In Bernini, Giuliano & Schwarz, Marcia L. (eds.), Pragmatic organization of discourse in the languages of Europe, 9–64. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Osam, E. Kweku. 2003. An introduction to the verbal and multi-verbal system of Akan. In Beermann, D. & Hellan, L. (eds.), Proceedings of the workshop on multi-verb constructions. Trondheim Summer School, 2003. http://edvarda.hf.ntnu.no/ling/tross/Google Scholar
Pu, Ming-Ming. 2007. The distribution of relative clauses in Chinese discourse. Discourse Processes 43 (1), 25–53.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph. 1957. Relative clauses in educated spoken English. English Studies 38, 97–109.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rydén, Mats. 1974. On notional relations in the relative clause complex. English Studies 55, 542–5.Google Scholar
Sag, Ivan. A. 1997. English relative clause constructions. Journal of Linguistics 33 (2), 431–83.Google Scholar
Schachter, Paul. 1973. Focus and relativization. Language 49 (1), 19–46.Google Scholar
Sigley, Robert. 1997. Choosing your relatives: Relative clauses in New Zealand English. PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington (cited in Denison & Hundt 2013).Google Scholar
Van der Auwera, Johan. 1985. Relative that – a centennial dispute. Journal of Linguistics 21, 149–79.Google Scholar