Hebrew relative clauses in HPSG

Abstract

One kind of relative clause in Modern Hebrew is formed with a gap, as in (1a). However, in certain situations, the gap can be replaced by a resumptive pronoun, as in (1b):

          (1a)  ha-yeled she   ra'iti
                   the-boy  that saw-1.SG

            (b)  ha-yeled she   ra'iti         'oto_i
                   the-boy  that saw-1.SG him_i
                   'the boy that I saw'

Some previous approaches, such as (Borer 1984) and (Sells 1984), have treated gaps and resumptives with different mechanisms. This paper examines several properties that Hebrew resumptive pronouns share with gaps, motivating a more unified treatment in HPSG using non-local feature propagation for both. This machinery is then used in the analysis a variety of Hebrew relative clause phenomena, including in situ resumptive pronouns, fronted resumptive pronouns, relative clauses lacking a complementizer, bare gap relatives, and subject-verb inversion.

References

Borer, Hagit (1984). "Restrictive relative clauses in Modern Hebrew." Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 2:219-260.

Sells, Peter (1984). Syntax and Semantics of Resumptive Pronouns. Ph.D. Thesis, UMass Amherst.