Restrictive Relative Constructions in Pesh: A Predominantly Internally-Headed Relative Clause Language
Claudine Chamoreau · 2021
In this chapter, I offer the first description of restrictive headed relative constructions in Pesh, a Chibchan language spoken in Honduras. This language follows three relativization strategies: 1) internally-headed relative clauses in which the head nominal of the relative clause, which is a core argument or a genitive, occurs inside the relative clause. This is the most frequent and primary strategy in Pesh, as it is used to relativize subjects; 2) externally-headed relative clauses in which the head nominal, which has a peripheral role in the relative clause, occurs outside the relative clause, being represented in the relative clause by a gap; and 3) relative clauses introduced by a wh-word that functions as a relative; only locative wh-words piah ‘where’ and pikan ‘where, in which direction’ occur. The distribution of the three relative clauses in Pesh clearly responds to accessibility restrictions on specific functions. Further, this chapter explores the relation between relative strategies and degree of finiteness. Internally-headed relative clauses and externally-headed relative clauses are less finite and show some nominalized features in the scalar phenomenon of nominalization, since the marker that obligatorily occurs at the end of the relative construction in internally-headed relative clauses and at the end of the relative clause in externally-headed relative clauses is a case or the topic enclitic marker prototypically used at the end of noun and postpositional phrases. In contrast, relative clauses bearing a wh-word are most finite, and their subordinate feature is marked by a subordinator at the end of the verb.