Behavioral Properties of Subjects 3 Whextraction Who ate

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.

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.

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.

Languages with restricted whextraction • 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Relative clauses in your language • Your language here.

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]]