Browsing by Author "Meyer, Jean-Jacques"
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- ItemA nominal shell analysis of restrictive relative clause constructions in Afrikaans(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Oosthuizen, Johan; Meyer, Jean-Jacques; Huddlestone, Kate; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study focuses on restrictive relative clauses in Afrikaans, an area that is largely underresearched in the literature on Afrikaans grammar. The primary aim of the study is to examine whether the general assumptions and devices of Oosthuizen’s (2013) Nominal Shell Analysis of reflexive constructions in Afrikaans, which was developed within the broad theoretical framework of Minimalist Syntax, can be extended to provide an account of restrictive relative clause constructions. The main consideration for taking the ideas underlying Oosthuizen’s analysis as point of departure concerns the fact that an obligatory reflexive construction and a restrictive relative clause construction both contain a pronominal element that is referentially dependent on some other expression in the sentence. That is, both a reflexive pronoun and a relative pronoun have to enter into a coreferential relationship with an antecedent expression. In light of this common characteristic, the question arises whether the general ideas and devices of the Nominal Shell account of this relationship in reflexive constructions can also be used to account for the coreferential relationship between a relative pronoun and its antecedent in restrictive relative clause constructions. In terms of the proposed analysis, the relative pronoun and its antecedent are initially merged into a nominal shell structure headed by a contrastive-focus light noun n, a functional category belonging to a natural class of identificational elements that also includes an identity-focus n, a possessor-focus n, a quantity-focus n, and a presentational-focus n (Oosthuizen 2013:126-144). More specifically: the contrastive-focus n selects a relative pronoun as its complement, with the latter carrying a set of unvalued φ-features (person, number, gender). The antecedent expression, in turn, is merged into the specifier position of the light noun. These operations result in a probe-goal configuration in which the antecedent can value the φ-features of the relative pronoun, with the n serving as mediator. In this configuration, the φ-valued relative pronoun is semantically interpreted as an anaphor and the nominal expression in the specifier position of the nP as its antecedent; that is, the pronoun is interpreted as obligatorily coreferential with this nominal expression. The main finding of the study is that the approach just outlined can provide an adequate account of the relevant facts of restrictive relative clause constructions in Afrikaans, without requiring any theoretical assumptions and devices that are either completely new or incompatible with those provided within the broad minimalist framework.