Form and Interpretation of Relative Clauses in English

Form and Interpretation of Relative Clauses in EnglishAuthor(s): Bertrand du CastelSource: Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring, 1978), pp. 275-289Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178055 .

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REMARKS AND REPLIES

Linguistic Inquiry Volume 9 Number 2 (Spring, 1978) 275-289.

Form and Interpretation of Relative Clauses in English

Bertrand du Castel

0. Introduction'

At the end of his well-known paper on English relatives, Kuroda (1968) raises the question of the correct analysis of so-called "stacked" relative clauses in the system of rules he proposes.

Vergnaud (1974, 18), in his thesis on French relatives, shows that there is an analysis of these relatives that appears to be formally correct in Kuroda's framework, but he rejects it on the grounds of its apparent incoherence. Kuroda (p. 286) himself questions the possibility of deriving stacked relatives in his framework because of certain problems that are encountered in copulative sentences. We will show that the problems discussed by Vergnaud and Kuroda are to be eliminated in a way that leads to interesting conclusions concerning the form and interpretation of relative clauses. We will work out a line of argument very close to Kuroda's, discussing independently phenomena encountered in simple sentences on the one hand and in discourse on the other, showing that the two lines of argument develop in parallel fashion, in a revealing way.

We will draw three conclusions:

1. Kuroda's analysis can be extended to the analysis of stacked relative clauses. 2. This analysis receives a natural interpretation in that it can be put in parallel

with general phenomena of discourse. 3. This analysis leads us to question the idea that there should be in linguistic

theory a single specific level at which all the logical information contained in sentences having embedded relative clauses is available.

1. Kuroda's Analysis

We summarize briefly that part of Kuroda's analysis which is necessary for our discussion.

1.1. Kuroda postulates two basic determiners, SOME and THAT. SOME can have as specific realizations some and any, and THAT (or THAT Pro; see below) can be realized as that, it, or the.

1 I am greatly indebted to Gilles Fauconnier for having suggested, after reading an earlier version of this article, the ideas that are similar to those developed in Fauconnier (1976) on other grounds. I am also grateful to Maurice Gross and Morris Salkoff for their help and suggestions and to anonymous LI referees for their useful observations. I naturally assume full responsibility for any errors. This article was mainly written when I was Allocataire de Recherche au Laboratoire d'Automatique Documentaire et Linguistique (ERA 247 du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique).



276 REMARKS AND REPLIES

1.2. In treating the pronoun what of interrogative sentences, Kuroda introduces the following rules:

(1) SOME Pro -- something (2) wh + SOME --> what (3) Pro -> + (after what)

For the sake of simplicity, we will treat Pro (Pronoun) as being a noun, as Kuroda (p. 267) does. Wh + SOME is dominated by the node Determiner (Det). The interrogative pronoun what derives from the structure (4) below, using rules (2) and (3):

(4) wh + SOME Pro

Rule (1) derives the pronoun something, which is assumed to be the assertive counterpart of the interrogative pronoun what.

Comparing the interrogatives what and which, Kuroda proposes to derive which from the following rule, just as (2) derives what.

(5) wh + THAT -- which

1.3. Kuroda takes as his basic hypothesis that the rules (2), (3), and (5) enter into the derivation of what and which in relatives as well as in interrogatives, thus identifying the two different uses of these elements.

Moreover, Kuroda proposes that rule (3) be generalized as follows:

(6) Pro --> (after what and which)

If we now apply rules (1), (5), and (6) to the basic form (7), we can derive sentence (8):

(7) SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro surprised Mary) pleased John (8) Something which surprised Mary pleased John.

In Kuroda's framework, sentences (10) and (11) below are both derived from the basic form (9):

(9) THAT Pro (wh + SOME Pro lay on the table) was the tissue (10) That which lay on the table was the tissue. (11) What lay on the table was the tissue.

The derivation of (10) involves an independently motivated rule of Definitization, which is stated by Kuroda as follows:

(12) N1 X Det N2 ->N1 X THAT N2 Condition: N1 and N2 are identical and coreferential.

In order that this rule not apply to its own output (which would be unmotivated, so far



REMARKS AND REPLIES

as we can see), we will state it as follows:

(13) N1 X SOME N2 -* N1 X THAT N2 Condition: N1 and N2 are identical and coreferential.

Since we will consider only those cases where Definitization applies in the course of the derivation of relative clauses, we shall use the restricted formulation below, for the sake of clarity:

(14) N1 wh + SOME N2 -- N1 wh + THAT N2 Condition: N1 and N2 are identical and coreferential.

Applied to (9), Definitization yields (15):

(15) THAT Pro (wh + THAT Pro lay on the table) was the tissue

Rules (5) and (6), plus the following rule, can then be applied to (15) to yield (10).

(16) THAT Pro -* that

If Definitization does not apply in (9), then the following rule of deletion applies:

(17) Det N1 --> (before wh + SOME N2) Condition: N1 and N2 are identical and coreferential.

Applied to (9), rule (17) plus rules (2) and (6) yield (11).

1.4. In Kuroda's framework, sentences (19) and (21) have the deep structures (18) and (20):

(18) SOME object (wh + THAT object surprised Mary) pleased John (19) Some object which surprised Mary pleased John. (20) THAT object (wh + SOME object lay on the table) was the tissue (21) That object which lay on the table was the tissue.

Applying Definitization to (20) yields (22):

(22) THAT object (wh + THAT object lay on the table) was the tissue

Kuroda did not explicitly mention the rules that apply in the derivation of (19) and (21) from (18) and (20). For the sake of clarity, we will assume throughout this article that the following rule applies to delete the embedded noun object in (18) and (22):

(23) N1 wh + Det N2 -* N1 wh + Det P Condition: N1 and N2 are identical and coreferential.

However, note that stating rule (23) makes the generalization (6) of rule (3) redundant, since the embedded Pro in (7) and (15) is now deleted by (23). This fact suggests another analysis for the derivation of (19) and (21). Kuroda's rule Pronominalization




can apply in (18) and (22), replacing the embedded noun object by Pro, and then rule (6) can delete Pro. We think that there are in fact many reasons for preferring the latter analysis (via Pronominalization) to the one above (via (23)),2 and that it would moreover be more consistent with Kuroda's ideas (cf. Kuroda (1971)) to adopt this analysis. However, the discussion that follows does not depend upon whether one analysis rather than the other is applied, so that the form of the argument we present is not affected by the choice made. In connection with this, it is only necessary to note that the coreferentiality mentioned in the condition on (23) is not used in our argumentation (see in particular section 3.5). Rule (23) is discussed in somewhat greater length in the appendix. The discussion in the appendix would apply as well, mutatis mutandis, for the analysis via Pronominalization.

1.5. Kuroda observes that deriving sentences (8) and (10) from the basic forms (7) and (9) corresponds informally to relating these sentences to the discourses (24) and (25) below:

(8) Something which surprised Mary pleased John. (24) Something pleased John. That surprised Mary. (10) That which lay on the table was the tissue. (25) Something lay on the table. That was the tissue.

The derivation of (8) and (10) in Kuroda's framework now appears to have a natural interpretation, since the assignment of determiners in the basic forms (7) and (9) reflects the peculiar nature of the conjunction between the sentences of discourses (24) and (25), which is due to the coreference relation between the subject NPs.3

2. Stacked Relatives

2.1. In the conclusion of his paper, Kuroda raises the question of the correct analysis of (26) in his framework:

(26) The red object which lay on the table was the tissue.

Vergnaud observes in his thesis that the sentence (27) can be given the analysis (28) in Kuroda's framework:

(27) Something which frightened Paul which surprised Mary pleased John. (28) ((SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) (wh + THAT Pro (wh +

SOME Pro frightened Paul) surprised Mary)) pleased John

2 Not the least of these reasons is the fact that the analysis via Pronominalization uses Kuroda's rules only. This point has in fact interesting theoretical consequences (especially as regards the status of Pronominalization), which will be the subject of a later paper.

3 The discussion of the relation between such discourses as (24) and (25) and relativization is in fact much more general and complete in Kuroda's paper. We must refer the reader to it, since it would take too much space to summarize the entire discussion. For new arguments that favor Kuroda's analysis, drawn from a study of French relatives, cf. du Castel (1977)).



REMARKS AND REPLIES

Applying Definitization in (28) converts the last SOME into THAT, yielding:

(29) ((SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) (wh + THAT Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul) surprised Mary)) pleased John

Informally replacing Pro in (7) by Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul), we see that (29) is parallel to (7). Thus our rules will meet their structural description in (29) if they are made able to refer to such sequences as Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul) in addition to single Pro's. According to the terminology of Hankamer and Sag (1976), they must be able to refer not only to single constituents, but also to "segments", that is, "constituent or constituents" (see the reference and section 3.2 below for an independent motivation for referring to segments).

Let us thus reformulate rule (23) as follows:

(30) NP,(Det X) Np2(wh + Det X) > NPI(Det X) Np2(wh + Det O) Condition: NP1 and NP2 are coreferential.

(The above formulation-where X is a variable-is intended to avoid defining a special symbol for referring to segments.) Notice that we have spoken above only of the structural description of the rules; we will return later to the discussion of the complete derivation of (27).

The same remarks apply to (26), to which the following analysis can be assigned:4

(31) ((THAT object (wh + SOME object was red)) (wh + SOME object (wh + THAT object was red) lay on the table)) was the tissue

Applying Definitization in (31) converts the first SOME into THAT, yielding:

(32) ((THAT object (wh + THAT object was red)) (wh + SOME object (wh + THAT object was red) lay on the table)) was the tissue

Informally replacing Pro in (9) by object (wh + THAT object was red), we see that (32) is parallel to (9). As noted above, the rules we use must be able to refer to segments in order to meet their structural description in (32). For instance, Definitization must be reformulated as follows:

(33) NP,(Det X) NP2(wh + SOME X) -* NP,(Det X) NP2(wh + THAT X) Condition: NP1 and NP2 are coreferential.

As for (27) above, we will return to the discussion of the complete formal derivation of (26) later.

2.2. The relation between (27) (which we recall here) and (34) below is parallel to that

4 We assume here with Kuroda that the adjective red derives from the relative which is red.




between (8) and (24) in 1.5:

(27) Something which frightened Paul which surprised Mary pleased John. (34) Something which frightened Paul pleased John. That which frightened Paul

surprised Mary.

Now (34) is composed of two sentences each embedding a relative clause, say, (35) and (37) below. Each of these sentences in turn can be decomposed along the same lines as (8)/(24) and (10)/(25) in 1.5, yielding (36) and (38), respectively:

(35) Something which frightened Paul pleased John. (36) Something pleased John. That frightened Paul. (37) That which frightened Paul surprised Mary. (38) Something frightened Paul. That surprised Mary.

The preceding decomposition of (27) parallels its derivation in 2.1: the sentences contained in (36) and (38) are precisely the sentences constituting the deep structure (28), and the sentences (35) and (37) of (34) are the constituent sentences of the intermediate structure (29). This is not surprising, since the informal replacement of Pro by Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul) in the discussion of (29) is equivalent to the informal replacement of something and that in (8)/(24) by something which frightened Paul and that which frightened Paul, which shows the parallelism between (8)/(24) and (27)/(34).

The relation between (26) (which we recall here) and (39) below is parallel to that between (10) and (25) in 1.5:

(26) The red object which lay on the table was the tissue. (39) Some red object lay on the table. That red object was the tissue.

The two sentences of (39)-say (40) and (42)-can be decomposed along the same lines as (8)/(24) and (10)/(25) in 1.5, yielding (41) and (43), respectively:

(40) Some red object lay on the table. (41) Some object lay on the table. That object was red. (42) That red object was the tissue. (43) Some object was red. That object was the tissue.

The decomposition of (26) above parallels its derivation in 2.1 in a way similar to the decomposition of (27).

2.3. The force of Kuroda's analysis of relative clauses hinges on two facts: first, he arrives at his derivation of (8) and (10) from (7) and (9) only on syntactic grounds, and second, this derivation is paralleled by the relations (8)/(24) and (10)/(25) of 1.5. We have observed in 2.1 and 2.2 above that there is a way for providing an analysis of stacked relative clauses that is formally correct in Kuroda's framework, and that this



REMARKS AND REPLIES

analysis is paralleled by relations similar to those that are observed in studying simple relative clauses. We shall now discuss the problems raised by the derivation of stacked relative clauses in Kuroda's framework and then develop their formal derivation in detail.

3. The Analysis of (27)

3.1. Vergnaud (p. 19) rejects (28) as the base form for (27) on the basis of the following statement:

The basic form (38) [our (28)/BDC], however, has a dismal property: in it, the two occurrences of the subject of frightened Paul have different determiners. Such a schizo- phrenic behavior is unacceptable within Kuroda's framework; we must reject representation (38).

To understand Vergnaud's statement, let us reconsider the sequence of sentences (34) that is related to (27):

(34) Something which frightened Paul pleased John. That which frightened Paul surprised Mary.

(34) can form a coherent discourse whenever the NP that which frightened Paul is coreferent with the NP something which frightened Paul. But now consider the sequence of four sentences (44) that is obtained by developing each sentence of (34) ((44) is composed of both (36) and (38)):

(44) Something pleased John. That frightened Paul. Something frightened Paul. That surprised Mary.

We will assume that Vergnaud's position can be stated as follows: the fact that the second occurrence of something in (44) cannot be coreferential with the preceding that makes it impossible to consider (44) as being related to (34); this makes the base form (28) unacceptable.

3.2. We now note that for the two sentences of (34) (i.e. (35) and (37)) to be related to the corresponding sequences of sentences (36) and (38) that form (44), these sequences of sentences must be considered as coherent discourses; hence the pronoun that of the second sentence of (36) must be coreferential with the pronoun something of the first one (and similarly for (38)). This coreference relation reflects a fundamental property of sentences containing relative clauses, namely, the coreference relation between the two occurrences of the pivot noun of the relativization.

Thus the defect of (44) is clear; it cannot express the coreference relation that must hold between the two subject NPs of the sentences of (34). But this question is independent of the problem of the derivation of stacked relative clauses, and thus must be accounted for independently of the latter problem.




Formally speaking, we are faced with the following situation: in order to account for the coreference relation that must hold between the two subject NPs of discourses like (24) or (25), we must have a rule roughly of the form (R):

(R) In the configuration: ## ... NP(SOME X) ... .. . Np(THAT Y) ... where ## stands for a sentence boundary, the two NPs can be coreferential if X is identical to Y.5

The deep structures of the sentences of (34) are given in (45):

(45) ## NP(SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) pleased John ## Np(THAT Pro (wh + SOME Pro frightened Paul)) surprised Mary ##

The rule (R) cannot apply in (45), since the sequences of (45) that are to be identified with X and Y of the rule (R) are not identical.

X = Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul) Y = Pro (wh + SOME Pro frightened Paul)

Since the rule of coreference that applies in (24) and (25) is obviously the same as the one that applies in (34),6 we are led to the conclusion that the rule (R) applies at the level of the surface structure of the sentences of (34), where the sequences corresponding to X and Y are identical:

(46) ## NP(SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) pleased John ## NP(THAT Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) surprised Mary ##

X = Y = Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)

3.3. The interpretation of the derivation of sentence (27) is now obvious, both informally and formally. (R) applies to the sequences of sentences (36) and (38), which allows them to be related to the sentences (35) and (37). Then rule (R) allows the two subject NPs of (35) and (37) to be coreferential; and this in turn allows the discourse (34) to be related to sentence (27).

We now return to the formal derivation of (27) from (28), which we repeat below:

(28) ((SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) (wh + THAT Pro (wh + SOME Pro frightened Paul) surprised Mary)) pleased John

I X and Y are segments (see fn. 6 below). Rule (R) is of course a specific realization of the general rule that allows the type of coreference observed in such discourses as

Some red object lay on the table. That object was the tissue. (see (Gross (1973)) for more complex examples) and should in fact be able to apply across more than one sentence boundary. We leave aside the question of formulating the constraints on the rule, since the above formulation is sufficient for all the examples involved in this article.

i Notice that this fact forces us to use segments in the formulation of (R), and thus provides independent evidence for referring to segments in the derivation of stacked relative clauses.



REMARKS AND REPLIES

Notice that corresponding to rule (R) for the discourses (24) and (25), there must be some rule that allows the two relevant NPs of the deep structures (7) and (9) of the sentences (8) and (10) related to (24) and (25) to be coreferential:

(7) NP(SOME Pro) (Np(wh + THAT Pro) surprised Mary) pleased John (9) Np(THAT Pro) (Np(wh + SOME Pro) lay on the table) was the tissue

Whatever the correct formulation may be for this rule corresponding to (R),7 it will apply to NPs differing at most by their determiner, and then it will not be able to apply to the relevant dominating NPs of the tree of (28). Thus the rule can only mark as coreferential in (28) the two leftmost Pro's on the one hand, and the two rightmost on the other; this permits the derivation of (29), which we repeat here:

(29) ((SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) (wh + THAT Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul) surprised Mary)) pleased John

Since (29) meets the condition of identity that is necessary for the application of the rule corresponding to (R), this rule can mark the two dominating NPs of (29) as coreferential; then applying rule (30) yields (47): 8

(47) ((SOME Pro (wh + THAT k frightened Paul)) (wh + THAT 0 surprised Mary)) pleased John

Sentence (27) can now be obtained from rules (1) and (5).

3.4 We will not work through the derivation of (26) immediately, since it contains a peculiar copulative predicate that requires a prior discussion; this is left for section 4. We discuss here the derivation of (48), which is parallel to (26):

(48) That which frightened Paul which surprised Mary pleased John.

(48) can be decomposed in the same way as (26) in section 2.2. The discussion above concerning the decomposition of (27) applies here to the decomposition of (48) (as well as to the decomposition of (26)). The base form of (48) is (49), just as (31) is the base form of (26):

(49) ((THAT Pro (wh + SOME Pro frightened Paul)) (wh + SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul) surprised Mary)) pleased John

The rule corresponding to (R) applies and marks as coreferential the two leftmost Pro's on the one hand, and the two rightmost on the other. Then (50) can be derived by

7We will not attempt to give this formulation, simply because we think it may not be necessary. See fn. '4.

8 For the sake of clarity, rule (30) will apply late in the derivation, here and later on; the point does not bear on the argument.




Definitization:

(50) ((THAT Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) (wh + SOME Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul) surprised Mary)) pleased John

The rule corresponding to (R) can now apply to the two dominating NPs of (50), which in turn permits Definitization to apply, giving (51):

(51) ((THAT Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul)) (wh + THAT Pro (wh + THAT Pro frightened Paul) surprised Mary)) pleased John

Applying rule (30) yields (52):

(52) ((THAT Pro (wh + THAT 0 frightened Paul)) (wh + THAT 4) surprised Mary)) pleased John

Finally, applying rules (5) and (16) yields (48).

3.5. The derivation of (27) receives a natural interpretation as mirroring the way the sequences of sentences (36) and (38) are related to (34) (and then (34) to (27)), by means of the rule of discourse (R); the same is true for (48). Formally speaking, we remark that in the derivation of (48), for instance, the application in (50) of the rule corresponding to (R) depends on the prior application of Definitization in (49), whereas the application of Definitization in (50) depends on the prior application in it of the rule corresponding to (R). We have already noticed that the rule (R) expresses a fundamental property of relativization, namely, the coreference between the two occurrences of the noun that is the pivot of the relativization. Since the network of coreference relations that is observed in the sentences embedding stacked relative clauses is part of the logical information they contain, one can conclude from the mutual dependence of the semantic rule corresponding to (R) and the syntactic rule of Definitization that there are not two independent levels of linguistic theory where logical information and syntactic information, respectively, contained in sentences with stacked relative clauses, would be available.

4. The Analysis of (26)

4.1. Kuroda raises an objection to using a basic form such as (31) for deriving (26), since, according to him (p. 286), the sentence (53)

(53) Some object was red.

would be unacceptable with a specific referent:

an indefinite noun with a specific referent is not generally allowed to be the subject of a copulative predicate.

Although the sentence (53) effectively raises a problem, as we shall see later, we



REMARKS AND REPLIES

disagree with Kuroda concerning the precise nature of the problem. In effect, consider the following discourses:9

(54) Go into the room. Some object is on the table. Take it. (55) Go into the room. Some object is red. Take it.

The second sentence of the discourse (55) cannot be natural if the speaker assumes that there is only one object in the room, whereas the second sentence of (54) is natural in such a context. In order that the discourse (55) be acceptable, there must be more than one object in the room, as shown by the following discourses, which are both possible:

(56) Go into the room. There are many objects in the room. Some object is on the table. Tell me which one.

(57) Go into the room. There are many objects in the room. Some object is red. Tell me which one.

Since some object clearly has a specific referent in (56) and (57), it appears that this is not the notion of specific or nonspecific referent that is relevant for the problem raised by sentence (53).

Consider now the following discourses:

(58) Go into the room. The object which is on the table is mine. Take it. (59) Go into the room. The object which is red is mine. Take it.

As before (but perhaps more subtly),10 the discourse (59) can only be natural if more than one object is supposed to be in the room, whereas the discourse (58) is natural whether there are one or more objects in the room.

These observations allow us to derive from the basic form (60)

(60) THAT object (wh + SOME object is red) is mine

the second sentence of (59), as well as the sentence (61), which has the same properties

(61) The red object is mine.

and to relate them to (62):

(62) Some object is red. That object is mine.

4.2. Reconsider now the sentence (26):

(26) The red object which lay on the table was the tissue.

We have seen that (39) is related to (26) by means of Kuroda's analysis:

(39) Some red object lay on the table. That red object was the tissue.

I have greatly benefited from a discussion with Alain Guillet on the following point. 10 As can be explained by the phenomenon encountered in 4.2. below.




To each of the sentences of (39) can be associated a discourse:

(40) Some red object lay on the table. (41) Some object lay on the table. That object was red. (42) That red object was the tissue. (43) Some object was red. That object was the tissue.

It is at this point that the problem raised by the sentence (26) arises: we have seen that (43) requires that more than one object be present in the context, whereas (26) can be natural in a context where there is only one object."

But notice that discourse (39) shares with (26) the property of not requiring that there be more than one object in the context. Thus we can see that the problem that (26) raises in being compatible with a context where there is only one object is independent of the problem of the derivation of stacked relative clauses.

To account for this observation about (39), we require a rule roughly of the following form:

(R') In the configuration:

C = ## ... NP(SOME X) ... ## ... Np(THAT X) ...

where ## stands for a sentence boundary and where the two NPs are coreferential, the contextual constraints on the referent of the NPs are determined by the first sentence of C.'2

Rule (R') applies when the two sentences of (39) are on the surface level, where the anaphoric relation that it requires holds by virtue of (R).

4.3. Now we can interpret the derivation of (26) in the light of the preceding discussion. (R) applies to the sequences of sentences (41) and (43), which allows them to be related to the sentences (40) and (42), which form the sequence of sentences (39). (R) allows the two subject NPs of (39) to be coreferential. According to (R'), the contextual constraints on (39) that concern the subject NPs are determined by the first sentence, and thus by (40), ' which eliminates the peculiar conditions that would be otherwise required by (42). Thus (39) is related to (26).

We can now carry out the derivation of (26) from the basic form (31), which parallels the derivation of (48) from (49). In the first step, the first two occurrences of the noun object on the one hand, and the last two occurrences of it on the other hand, are marked as being coreferential, which permits Definitization to apply to derive (32). In the second step, the two occurrences of the sequence object which was red are

1' This is perhaps more obvious in the present tense. 12 By "contextual constraint" we mean just the type of constraint observed above. 13 They are in fact determined by the first sentence of (41), since (R') applies to (41) as well as to (39).



REMARKS AND REPLIES

marked as being coreferential and then some rule equivalent to (R') above14 allows us to assign to the context of (32) the constraints concerning the rightmost relevant NP (SOME object which was red), while excluding those that would otherwise apply to the first. (26) is then derived from (32), just as (48) is derived from (50).15

The sentences (26) and (27) now appear to have a natural derivation in Kuroda's framework. Moreover, the way in which (26) is treated indicates that other logical properties than coreference must be accounted for at different steps in the derivation of stacked relatives.

5. Conclusion

This study of stacked relative clauses in Kuroda's framework has shown that Kuroda's analysis is much more powerful than the author himself claimed; furthermore, this analysis provides us with a theory of relativization that sheds new light on the way in which the logical and syntactic constraints on the formation of relative clauses interact. We are thus able to draw three main conclusions:

1. Kuroda's analysis can be maintained together with all the claims that it makes about the morphological properties of the relative pronouns of English and about the semantic interpretation of the formation of relative clauses.

2. The derivation of stacked relatives in Kuroda's framework receives a natural interpretation since it mirrors exactly the way in which some general phenomena of discourse are elaborated. The description of these general phenomena requires some specific rules of discourse. Equivalents of these rules are used for the derivation of stacked relatives. It may be that a generalization can be made here by restating some notion of "generalized transformation".

3. The type of rules that appear to be necessary for the derivation of stacked relative clauses in Kuroda's framework leads us to assume that certain logical properties of sentences containing relative clauses must be determined at different steps in this derivation, and moreover to assume that there is not a single specific level in linguistic theory at which all the logical information contained in these sentences is available.

A fourth conclusion may be possible, namely, that Kuroda's analysis now appears to bring us a step closer to the type of theory mentioned by Partee (1975, 206-207) in

14 As in the case of the rule corresponding to (R) (see fn. 7), we will not attempt to formalize the rule equivalent to (R'), since it may be asked whether these rules and the corresponding rules of discourse are not in fact the same rules, that is, whether one should restate some notion of "generalized transformation" in the grammar. We will not pursue the matter further here, since it obviously exceeds the scope of this article. This point is of course independent of the assumptions made here.

15 From (31) one derives the following sentence as well as (26): (i) The object which was red which lay on the table was the tissue.

To the extent to which one can make safe judgments on such an uncomfortable sentence as the preceding, the same discussion as for (26) applies.




comments on Chomsky (1974):

Linguists, though probably not logicians, are likely to be very interested in the question of whether the simplest syntax constructed solely to specify the well-formed sentences of a language would be different from the simplest syntax that could be directly utilized by a semantics for that language.

Appendix: Note on Rule (23)

Let us recall that Kuroda derives the sentences (64) and (65) below from the basic form (63):

(63) SOME Pro (wh + SOME Pro surprised Mary) pleased John (64) Anything which surprised Mary pleased John. (65) Whatever surprised Mary pleased John.

The difference between (64) and (65) is just the same as the difference between (10) and (11). Definitization applies in the derivation of (64) but not in the derivation of (65), where rule (17) applies.

In just the same way, sentences (67) and (68) below derive from the basic form (66):

(66) SOME present (wh + SOME present surprised Mary) pleased John (67) Any present which surprised Mary pleased John. (68) Whatever present surprised Mary pleased John.

Now recall that rule (23) applies in the course of the derivation of (64) and (67). It does not apply in the course of the derivation of (65) and (68), since if it applies before (17), this latter rule cannot apply and we thus obtain the ungrammatical (69) and (70):

(69) *Anything whatever surprised Mary pleased John. (70) *Any present whatever surprised Mary pleased John.

It cannot apply after (17), and thus (68) can be derived. As for (11), rule (3) applies in the derivation of (65) to delete the remaining Pro.

Notice that the ungrammaticality of (69) and (70) leads us to assume that rule (23) applies after rule (17). This extrinsic ordering can be avoided by formulating rule (23) as follows:

(71) N1 wh + THAT N2 -> N1 wh + THAT ? Condition: N1 and N2 are identical and coreferential.

Returning to the more general formulation (30), we state the rule as follows:

(72) NP,(Det X) Np2(wh + THAT X) -> NP,(Det X) NP2(wh + THAT O

Condition: NP1 and NP2 are coreferential.

Kuroda (p. 285) remarks that his rules derive from (20) not only (21) but also the



REMARKS AND REPLIES

unacceptable (73):

(20) THAT object (wh + SOME object lay on the table) was the tissue (21) That object which lay on the table was the tissue. (73) *What object lay on the table was the tissue.

Comparing (63), (64), and (65) with (66), (67), and (68), and furthermore (9), (10), and (11) with (20), (21), and (73), Kuroda concludes that because of the completeness of his analysis, one can consider that sentence (73) does not put it in question.

References

Chomsky, N. (1974) "Questions of Form and Interpretation," Linguistic Analysis 1, 75-109 (1975).

du Castel, B. (1977) "L'opposition defini/indefini quant au problme des relatives," in Actes du Colloque de Syntaxe et Semantique du Frangais a Montreal (Sept. 1976), Cahiers de Linguistique 7-8, Presses de L'Universite du Quebec a Montreal.

Fauconnier, G. (1976) Etude de certains aspects logiques et grammaticaux de la quantification et de l'anaphore en fran,ais et en anglais, These d'Etat, Paris.

Gross, M. (1973) "On Grammatical Reference," in F. Kiefer and N. Ruwet, eds. (1973), 203- 217.

Hankamer, J. and I. Sag (1976) "Deep and Surface Anaphora," Linguistic Inquiry 7, 391-426. Kiefer, F. and N. Ruwet, eds. (1973) Generative Grammar in Europe, D. Reidel, Dordrecht,

Holland. Kuroda, S.-Y. (1968) "English Relativization and Certain Related Problems," in D. Reibel and S.

Schane, eds. (1969), 264-287. (Reprinted from Language 44, 244-266 (1968).) Kuroda, S.-Y. (1971) "Two Remarks on Pronominalization," Foundations of Language 7, 183-

198. Partee, B. (1975) "Montague Grammar and Transformational Grammar," Linguistic Inquiry 6,

203-300. Reibel, D. and S. Schane, eds. (1969) Modern Studies in English, Prentice-Hall, Englewood

Cliffs, New Jersey. Vergnaud, J.-R. (1974) French Relative Clauses, unpublished Doctoral dissertation, MIT,

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Cie IBM-France Division Scientifique 36, Av. Raymond Poincare 75016 Paris France



Form and Interpretation of Relative Clauses in English

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