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Article published In:
Asia-Pacific Language Variation
Vol. 3:1 (2017) ► pp.95–122

A corpus-based analysis of word order variation in Yami relative clause construction

| National Chung Cheng University
| National Chung Cheng University

Yami relative clauses (RCs) can either precede the head noun, for example, kanakan ‘child,’ as in ko ni-ma-cita o [ji yákneng] a kanakan ‘I saw the child who cannot hold still’, functioning as restrictive RCs ([RC] + a + Head NP), or follow it as in ko ni-ma-cita o kanakan a [ji yákneng] ‘I saw that child, who cannot hold still’, functioning as nonrestrictive RCs for complementation strategy (Head NP + a + [RC]). The VARBRUL results demonstrate that head final RCs are predominant in Yami, and Yami speakers use them to connect the given referent with the previous discourse to convey given information. The study found that Subject head nouns outnumber other grammatical roles of head NPs, and that Subject head noun with Subject RC construction is produced more than any other RC constructions, which indicates that Yami RCs are used to modify the Subject for topic continuity.

Keywords: Yami, relative clause construction, word order, variation, information flow
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Yami speech community and its language
    • 2.1An offshore indigenous tribe of Taiwan and its speech community: Yami
    • 2.2A brief introduction to Yami clause structure
      • 2.2.1Yami: A typical Philippine type structure
      • 2.2.2Yami RC structure
  • 3.Proposed factors determining the variation of Yami RC
    • 3.1Information status, definiteness, humanness
    • 3.2Grammatical roles in Yami RC
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Data coding of relative clauses
    • 4.2Coding reliability
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Information flow factors and variation of Yami RCs
      • 5.1.1Occurrence of variation of Yami RC
      • 5.1.2Factors accounting for head initial RCs
    • 5.2Analysis of unmarked Yami RCs: Head-final RC
    • 5.3Grammatical roles of RCs and the variation of Yami RC
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 28 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.3.1.05cha
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