The Resumptive Pronouns within Relative Clauses in the English Language - Essay Example

Argument about the Resumptive Pronouns within Relative Clauses in English Language Resumptive pronouns refer to the pronouns found in relative clauses that denote the antecedent of the matrix or the main clause (Ferreira, 64). They occur after an interruption or a pause, for instance, series of adjectives, an embedded clause, or a wh-island (Ferreira, 64). Resumptive pronouns restate the antecedent. Example This is the boy that whenever it rains she cries. However, I argue that given the grammatical reserves of English, particularly resumptive pronouns in island- violating relative clauses, these resumptive pronouns found in island violating circumstances qualifies to be part of the grammatical competence of English language. For example a) Dogs which if you are bitten by them, you die. The above sentence demonstrates that it is impossible to generate island-violations without resumptive pronouns. Based on the above examples, the major function of resumptive pronouns is to block breach of syntactic restraints. However, this is not the only role of resumptive pronouns (Frank, 23). Previous arguments have seen a resumptive pronoun as ways of saving a sentence that has been stated by a speaker without noticing that it is difficult or impossible to grammatically finish (Frank, 23). For a sentence that is syntactically complicated to be clarified, English speakers employ the use of these resumptive pronouns. In several languages, English inclusive, resumptive pronouns are essential if a sentence is to be grammatical (Frank and William, 89). They are hence needed to assist interpretation as well as performance in certain syntactic forms. According to previous arguments, linguists believe that these pronouns come about due to syntactic processing (Frank and William, 89). On the basis of grammatical processing, resumptive pronouns are used by speakers in clarifying sentences that are syntactically complicated (Frank and William, 89). In this case, these pronouns are used as hook backs to the precursor (Frank and William, 89). This indicates that according to this point of view, these pronouns are perceived as a type of helper which is introduced into the sentence for the purpose of making the comprehension of these sentences simpler. In relative clauses, resumptive pronouns are normally not seen as grammatical though their point of grammaticality increases as they move away from the head. Consequently, (4b) appears better than (4a). Some development in whether resumptive pronouns are judged as grammatical may also come about when these pronouns are embedded, as shown in (4c). 4 a) *This is the dogi that hei loves Oscar. b) This is the dogi that maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe hei loves Oscar. c) This is the dogi that I think hei loves Oscar. Grounding my argument on the aspects that seem to impact on the distribution of English resumptive pronouns, and owing to the fact that distance is not relevant to the principles of syntax, building a grammatical report of resumptive pronouns in similar terms is difficult. The factor that appear to impact on the distribution of English resumptives is majorly extractability that is, whether a trace is suitable. Resumptive pronouns are hence normally in opposite allocation with traces. In (5) below, where the trace is applicable, the resumptive pronoun does not exist; in (6), below where the trace is impossible due to island restrictions, the resumptive pronoun is relevant 5. a) That’s the boyi that I love ti . b) *That’s the boyi that I like himi . 6. a) *This is the boyi that I don’t know what ti said. b) This is the boyi that I don’t know what hei said. In Sentence 6B, the syntactic tree for the sentence "This is the boy that I don’t know what he said", the structure when there is an mandatory resumptive pronoun used, is shown. To indicate a null category , "ø" is used. In Sentence 6A, the syntactic tree of the sentence "*This is the boy that I don’t know what said", the structure when there is no mandatory resumptive pronoun used, is depicted. To indicate a null category, "ø" is used. The “*” signifies an ungrammatical sentence Resumptive pronouns are those pronouns which become more common the more the relative clause become embedded in the sentence due to greater processing restraints (Frank and William, 92). Once a relative clause is deeply rooted, the sentence becomes longer and comprehending whatever is the relative clause modifies becomes more difficult (Frank and William, 92). This extra level, or added distance, renders processing the sentence further tricky. These pronouns may not be essentially grammatical in various languages such as English, but are introduced into other sentences for lucidity when there is an immense deal of distance or embedding (Frank and William, 92). Vital to having a clear comprehension of resumptive pronouns, is the understanding of the concept of their corresponding item the trace (Frank and William, 92). Because resumptive pronouns as well as traces may not be set apart in the English vocabulary, the meaning of one needs information concerning the other (Frank, 29). When movement takes place in English sentences, an unseen place-marker known as trace is left (Frank, 29). A case of movement which can cause a trace is when an supporting verb is transferred from a matrix clause to the opening of a sentence to bring about a question phrase (Frank, 29). A trace can therefore be defined as an empty group that sustains a place in a sentence (Frank, 29). However, some languages lack surface level proof of trace, as a linguistic part. Traces stand for the pronoun that ought to have been existing in the embedded clause, or prior to the wh-movement (Frank, 29). It is normally removed from the facade symbol of the sentence. consequently, according to the Binding Theory, the vacant place of a trace have to still be co-indexed with the previous noun that it refers to because they refer to the identical entity (Frank, 29). The following sentences can be used to illustrate this approach of resumptive pronouns. a) That is [the girli that ti cries noisily.] b) *That is [the girli that shei cries noisily.] In sentence (a), a trace is shown. In this trace, the pronoun has been eliminated from the embedded clause (Frank, 29). The word him in sentence (b) has been used to represent that pronoun which if it maintained in the sentence, would be termed as resumptive pronoun (Frank, 29). Still, as earlier stated, resumptive pronouns and traces occur in corresponding distribution. For this cause, in order to reflect on the sentence as grammatical having a trace in (a), the sentence has to be ungrammatical if the same position is filled by the resumptive pronoun in sentence (b) (Ferreira, 64). The sentences demonstrated using the trees below operate similarly. The above syntactic tree is for the sentence (a) above. It shows the structure when no resumptive pronoun is used (Ferreira, 64). To indicate a null category, "ø" is made use of. The systematic tree above is for the sentence (b) above (Ferreira, 64). The syntactic tree shows the structure when resumptive pronoun is employed. To indicate a null group, "ø" is employed. The "*" signifies an ungrammatical sentence. According to the previous arguments, linguists presented a conception of grammar which applies the machinery of tree adjacent grammar in an independent theory of good planned grammatical structures (Ferreira, 64). The spheres over which every structural dependency is articulated are the basic trees in the system. In this system, any movement transformation that is not within the domain is impossible (Ferreira, 64). To be able to account for the popular occurrences of island violations, instead of stating rules restraining wh-movement or even the position of traces of wh- movement, they argued that the auxiliary trees as well as the elementary required to form structures using island violations majorly grounded on two autonomous principles, ought to be ruled out (Frank and William, 99). To be able to adhere to the needs that derivation trees ought to be context free, a properly made derived auxiliary tree grounded in X is not able to be derived through substitution of the tree having an X foot node to one having an X root node (Frank and William, 99). The previous arguments, in an attempt to remedy island violations using resumptive pronouns, argue that in unexpected English speech speakers, utterances are sometimes made having a resumptive pronoun in the position of the trace (Frank and William, 99). This would result into an island violation suppose a wh- word had been derived from that place as demonstrated in the below examples from a relative clause and a wh-island respectively (Frank and William, 99). a) That asshole Y, who I loathe and treat with spite the ground he walks on, pointed out…… b) There are always things that I am curious of what they are going to utter … They argue that these resumptive pronouns come about due to the processing effect (Frank and William, 99). Even though reliance between a trace and a wh-word in these places is not grammatical, as an object of the way sentence production follows, forms such as the ones demonstrated above are spoken (Frank and William, 99). These arguments clearly refuse any likelihood of a formal solution in the grammar to give an explanation for these forms (Frank and William, 99). An incremental example of sentence production is used whereby a wh- element is given out in a fronted place before planning out for the entire sentence. In this aspect also, a fluent speech utterance is allowed. Instead of waiting to come up with the whole sentence whereby the distance between the trace and the wh- element is significantly unbounded, the speaker can start speaking while the structure remaining is still under construction (Frank, 33). The wh-element is connected to a full clause when it occurs again in the position of base generation. In this previous argument therefore, resumptive pronouns are directly introduced as the last option to avoid the principle by leaving a trace that is not governed (Frank, 33). On the other hand, the argument I hold, elementary trees are the basic units of incremental sentence production. Choosing a lexical item keep up a correspondence with choosing an elementary tree (Frank, 33). The grammatical aspects of the structure of that tree are a natural sphere for describing the planning obligation a speaker formulates during the production of a sentence (Frank, 33). The grammar gives a set of trees to use. As the process of sentence planning continues, the speaker tries to choose the appropriate trees to code the meaning he or she intends to express and to join them in a certain configuration (Frank, 33). Works cited Ferreira, Fernanda. 2000. Syntax in Language Production: An Approach Using Tree adjoining Grammars. In L.Wheeldon, editor, Aspects of Language Production. Retrieved from www.thefreedictionary.com/Resumptive Frank, Robert and William Badecker. 2001. Modeling syntactic encoding with incremental tree- adjoining grammar. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, University of Pennsylvania retrieved from web.uconn.edu/boskovic/papers/FDSL7.final.pdf Frank, Robert. 2002. Phrase structure, composition and syntactic dependencies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved from www.lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/30/paper2813.pdf Read More