A Syntactic Study Of Relative Clause Extraposition

It is often observed that some elements can be extraposed to the right of, or subsequent to, their canonical position. Among the elements that could be extraposed is the relative clause (RC), whose extraposition has been extensively studied and is further explored in the present study.Observing that some differences exist between an RC-extraposition construction and a canonical relative construction (Rel-Con), i.e., there are some syntactic and semantic constraints on the host of the extraposed RC, the author proposes that RC extraposition is not simply a stylistic operation, but a syntactic one. Consequently a syntactic analysis of the construction is under way. Arguing that no previous analysis seems to be an optimal one given both the theoretical and empirical considerations, the author probes into the properties characteristic of the RC-extraposition construction, concluding that some of these properties, namely, those concerning the constraint on the host, can only be accounted for if we assume that the extraposed RC and its host never form a constituent at any derivational stage. Instead, the extraposed RC, which always bears the most important information in the construction, simply functions to specify the referent of its host, which has to be a [+specific] nominal.To account for other properties, i.e., those related with the constituency problem concerning extraposition from different positions, the author proposes that the extraposed RC is actually a specifying conjunct of different constituents, and this conjunct has undergone ellipsis under identity at certain stage of derivation. Specifically, when its host occupies the object position, the subject position, and the Spec CP position, the extraposed RC is respectively a vP, IP and CP conjunct that undergoes the deletion process at each phase level, where spell-out occurs. Of course, further syntactic operations can still go ahead after spell-out.When this 'specifying coordination plus deletion' analysis is taken to account for other cases of extraposition, viz. the argument extraposition construction and the...