Open AccessPersian free relatives
Author(s) -
Mehran A. Taghvaipour
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
proceedings of the international conference on head-driven phrase structure grammar
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1535-1793
DOI - 10.21248/hpsg.2005.21
Subject(s) - persian , dependency (uml) , noun , matching (statistics) , head (geology) , linguistics , computer science , natural language processing , interrogative word , artificial intelligence , mathematics , philosophy , statistics , geomorphology , geology
Free relatives (FRs) in Persian are Unbounded Dependency Constructions,containing gaps or resumptive pronouns (RPs). In some positions only gaps areallowed, and in some other positions only RPs. The structure of Persian FRs isbipartite, containing two constituents: a phrasal part and asentential. Persian FRs are sensitive to the matching effect and show distinctproperties from noun phrases, ordinary relative clauses, and interrogativecomplements. This paper proposes a unified HPSG account which assumes that thephrasal part of a FR is the head and the filler at the same time. The proppedapproach is presented in two versions (with and without traces) and can takecare of the dependency between the gap or the RP and the licencing constituentwith a truly single mechanism.