Structural Ambiguity and Resumptive Pronouns: The Pragmatics of the Transitive 'Direct' and 'Indirect' Relatives in Modern Irish. (1st January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hoyne, Mícheál
• Is Part Of: Journal of Celtic linguistics. Volume 17(2016)
• Page Start: 31
• Page End: 95
• Publication Date: 2016-01-01
• Subjects: Celtic languages -- Periodicals; Linguistics -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; Celtic languages; Linguistics; Great Britain; Periodicals; 491.6
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0962-1377

Abstract

On the basis of a corpus of transitive relative clauses from authentic texts this paper seeks to shed light on the 'direct' and 'indirect' transitive relative clauses in Modern Irish. 'Direct' transitive relative clauses in Irish are sometimes structurally ambiguous, that is, it is sometimes unclear whether the antecedent is the subject or the direct object of the relative clause. The present paper seeks to identify how such ambiguous clauses are correctly interpreted. It is frequently claimed that the 'indirect' relative is used to disambiguate potentially ambiguous object-relative constructions. This paper argues, however, that the use of the indirect relative is better explained by accessibility theory. The claim is that the 'indirect' relative is used when the antecedent is less accessible at the point at which it is reactivated in the relative clause.