The relative pronoun strategy: New data from southern New Guinea

Abstract

The Relative Pronoun strategy is commonly used for relativization in European languages such as English – for example: <i>The woman [ <b>who</b> won the lottery ] is my neighbour</i>. In this strategy the head nominal (here the woman) is indicated inside the relative clause by a clause-initial pronominal element (the relative pronoun, here <i>who</i>). The Relative Pronoun strategy has been characterized as an exclusively European areal feature (e.g. Comrie 1998). This article describes this strategy in more detail, as well as previous accounts of its distribution, and goes on to demonstrate that the same strategy is also found in Nama, a Papuan language of southern New Guinea.