A refined typology of internally headed relatives
A refined typology of internally headed relatives

Summary/Abstract: This paper defends a two-pronged syntactic-semantic typology of I(nternally) H(eaded) R(elative construction)s, based on island (in)sensitivity and the restrictive/definite contrast. It illustrates three attested types with data from Lakhota (island insensitive, restrictive), Navajo (island sensitive, restrictive), and Japanese (island sensitive, definite). It is shown that in Lakhota and Japanese the scope of the IH is determined by the surface position of the strong quantifier that binds it, while in Navajo, the quantifier is overtly realized in the relative and construed in the matrix. The paper makes the following contributions to existing literature on the topic: (i) It argues that the IHs of Lakhota do not undergo Head-Raising (contra Williamson 1987) and are merely bound un-selectively a CP-external quantifier, thus avoiding island sensitivity; (ii) it proposes that IH -binding quantifiers in Navajo undergo covert cyclic raising out of the relative into the matrix, and are sensitive to islands for this reason; (iii) it argues that Japanese IHRs do not involve the discourse variety of e-type anaphora (contra Shimoyama 1999), but a grammatized variety, which involves cyclic raising of a null element, an island sensitive operation.

• Details
• Contents