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Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 43:4 (2019) ► pp.997–1014

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The relative pronoun strategy

New data from southern New Guinea

ORCiD logo with link | University of New England
Published online: 23 January 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.18040.sie
Abstract
The Relative Pronoun strategy is commonly used for relativization in European languages such as English – for example: The woman [ who won the lottery ] is my neighbour. In this strategy the head nominal (here the woman) is indicated inside the relative clause by a clause-initial pronominal element (the relative pronoun, here who). The Relative Pronoun strategy has been characterized as an exclusively European areal feature (e.g. Comrie, Bernard. 1998. Rethinking the typology of relative clauses. Language Design: Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics 11. 59–85.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This article describes this strategy in more detail, as well as previous accounts of its distribution, and goes on to demonstrate that the same strategy is also found in Nama, a Papuan language of southern New Guinea.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Defining the relative pronoun strategy
  • 2.The relative pronoun strategy outside Europe
  • 3.Relative clauses in Nama
    • 3.1Background: The language, contact and basic structure
    • 3.2The relative pronoun strategy in Nama
    • 3.3The relative pronoun strategy in other southern New Guinea languages
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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