Behavioral Properties of Subjects (3): Wh-extraction

1. Behavioral Properties of Subjects (3): Wh-extraction • Who ate my sandwich? • Who is the subject of eat. • Who did Pat see? • Who is the direct object of see. • Who did Leslie give the tickets to? • Who is the object of a preposition. • To whom did Leslie give the tickets. • To whom is a prepositional phrase. • Who is Chris taller than? • Who is the object of a comparative.

2. Wh-extraction • Question words begin with wh in English. • The question word is extracted from the position that is normal for its grammatical relation (subject position, object position, etc.) and is placed at the beginning of the sentence. • Some languages use wh-in-situ (in place): • You saw what? • In English this is used only for expressing surprise or to indicate that you missed part of the previous sentence.

3. Cleft Formation • It was Pat who ate my sandwich. • Pat is subject of eat. • It was Pat who Chris saw. • Pat is object of see. • It was Pat who Leslie gave the tickets to. • Pat is object of a preposition. • It was Pat who Chris was taller than. • Pat is object of comparison.

4. Languages with restricted wh-extraction • It is not common for wh-extraction to be limited to certain grammatical relations. • When it is restricted, it is generally restricted to subjects. • Malagasy • Subject can be extracted. • Object cannot be extracted. • Recipient cannot be extracted. • Instrument and other prepositional phrases can be extracted. • Passive voice and other voices create subjects so that they can be extracted.

5. NP N-bar S-bar S N-bar VP Det N NP V NP The person who bought the house Behavioral Properties of Subjects (4): Relative Clauses Relative Clause Head Relative Pronoun

6. Components of Relative Clauses • Head noun: person • Sentence from which something is extracted. • Bought the house. • Relative pronoun or complementizer: • The person who bought the house. • The person that bought the house.

7. Relative Clauses • The whole thing is an NP and can be in any NP position. • The person who bought the house is nice. • Subject • I met the person who bought the house. • Object • I talked to the person who bought the house. • Object of a preposition.

8. Relative Clauses in English • The extracted (relativized) can have any grammatical relation in English. • I met the person who saw you. • Subject is relativized. • I met the person who you saw. • Direct object is relativized. • I met the person who you talked to. • Object of a preposition is relativized. • I met the person who you are taller than. • Object of comparison is relativized.

9. Relative Clauses in English • If something other than the subject is relativized in English, the relative pronoun or complementizer can be omitted: • The person I met. • The person I talked to. • The person you are taller than. • *The person bought the house. • Not a relative clause.

10. Participial clauses in English • These are not relative clauses: • [NP The person buying the house] is rich. • [NP The person tormented by nightmares] couldn’t sleep. • Can’t have relative pronouns or complementizers (although that is not a criterion for being a relative clause in other languages): • *the person who/that buying the house is rich • *the person who/that tormented by nightmares is rich

11. Relative Clauses in English • These are relative clauses: • The person who is buying the house • The person who is tormented by nightmares

12. Relative clauses in your language • Your language here.

13. Relative clauses in Malagasy • Subject can be relativized. • Direct object cannot be relativized. • Instrument cannot be relativized. • Passive and other voices create new subjects so that they can be relativized. • Compare to participial clauses in English. • [NP The person [s washing the clothes]] • * [NP The clothes [s the person washing]] • Intendent to mean the clothes that the person is washing. • [NP The clothes [s being washed by the person]]