Speaker: Marko Hladnik (Universiteit Utrecht)
Title: The diverse origins of resumption – Feature recoverability and processing in relative clauses
Time: 13:13-15:00
Venue: Lipsus/235C
Abstract
Relative clauses in Slavic languages can be formed in two ways: they are either introduced by a relative pronoun or a complementizer, with the latter case involving resumption. I argue for a uniform syntactic analysis of the two constructions, wherein the differences only emerge at PF, where resumption is a necessary result of recoverability requirements. Apparent optionality of resumption such as we find in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and Polish has deeper syntactic causes, i.e. the two options are actually the result of separate syntactic derivations.
It is necessary to keep apart different types of resumption with distinct properties, which have often been conflated under the same label in the literature. Resumption as repair differs from obligatory resumption as a primary strategy in relative clauses, whereas yet another type is shown to be driven by processing, not syntax.
In addition, processing considerations – rejected as a source of resumption in short relatives – also play a role when it comes to the choice between the two available alternatives. While both options are always available and neither is prescriptively discriminated against, a corpus study reveals that the choice between the two observes a complexity hierarchy of relativized positions. An increase in position complexity is coupled with an increase in preference for the pronoun construction.