This paper is a usage-based study of the grammar of that set of English Relative Clauses with which a relativizer has been described as optional. We argue that the regularities in the use of relativizers in English can be seen as systematically arising from pragmatic-prosodic factors, creating frequency effects, resulting in some cases highly grammaticized formats: the more the Main Clause and the Relative Clause are integrated with each other, that is, approach monoclausal status, the more likely we are to find no relativizer used; conversely, the more separate the two clauses are, the more likely we are to find an overt relativizer. These findings have led us to suggest that the more monoclausal combinations have become unitary storage and processing chunks. We thus see these findings as a contribution not only to our understanding of Relative Clauses, but to our understanding of syntactic organization in general and of the nature of the grammatical practices in which speakers engage in everyday interactions.
AMBRIDGE, BEN, EVAN KIDD, CAROLINE F. ROWLAND & ANNA L. THEAKSTON
2015. The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 42:2 ► pp. 239 ff.
Auer, Peter & Stefan Pfänder
2011. Constructions: Emergent or emerging ?. In Constructions: Emerging and Emergent, ► pp. 1 ff.
Auran, Cyril & Rudy Loock
2011. The prosody of discourse functions: The case of appositive relative clauses in spoken British English. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 7:2
2018. Teaching Relative Clauses. In The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, ► pp. 1 ff.
De Stefani, Elwys & Anne-Sylvie Horlacher
2017. Une étude interactionnelle de la grammaire : la dislocation à droite évaluative dans la parole-en-interaction. Revue française de linguistique appliquée Vol. XXII:2 ► pp. 15 ff.
Diessel, Holger
2019. The Grammar Network,
Diessel, Holger
2020. A Dynamic Network Approach to the Study of Syntax. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Florian Jaeger, T.
2010. Redundancy and reduction: Speakers manage syntactic information density. Cognitive Psychology 61:1 ► pp. 23 ff.
Frizelle, Pauline & Paul Fletcher
2014. Profiling relative clause constructions in children with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 28:6 ► pp. 437 ff.
Grafmiller, Jason, Benedikt Szmrecsanyi & Lars Hinrichs
2018. Restricting the restrictive relativizer. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 14:2 ► pp. 309 ff.
Hofmeister, Philip, T. Florian Jaeger, Inbal Arnon, Ivan A. Sag & Neal Snider
2013. The source ambiguity problem: Distinguishing the effects of grammar and processing on acceptability judgments. Language and Cognitive Processes 28:1-2 ► pp. 48 ff.
Iwasaki, Shoichi
2015. A multiple-grammar model of speakers’ linguistic knowledge. Cognitive Linguistics 26:2 ► pp. 161 ff.
Khachaturyan, Maria
2023. Mano correlatives are non-subordinating. Mandenkan :70 ► pp. 3 ff.
2015. Cognitive Linguistics and interactional discourse: time to enter into dialogue. Language and Cognition 7:4 ► pp. 485 ff.
감경아 & Hyeson Park
2008. Relative Clause Reduction in Research Article Abstracts: Native vs. Non-native Writers Compared. English Language and Linguistics null:25 ► pp. 1 ff.
신은영
2016. Variation in the Choice of Relativizers in Interlanguage of Korean EFL Learners. English21 29:2 ► pp. 447 ff.
장은영
2014. A Corpus-based Analysis on the Factors Conditioning the Selection of Relative Pronoun That and Which in Newspaper. Studies in Linguistics null:33 ► pp. 357 ff.
장은영 & 김경열
2015. Relative Pronouns as an Accessibility Marker in Discourse. The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature 57:1 ► pp. 501 ff.
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