What is an internal relative clause?

Definition

An internal relative clause is a relative clause whose head noun phrase occurs within the relative clause itself.

Also known as:

Internal-headed relative clause

Discussion
	This type of relative clause, which occurs only in SOV languages, takes the place of a regular noun phrase argument in the main clause.
	The meaning of an internal relative clause may be ambiguous in languages that do not grammatically indicate which of the noun phrases within the relative clause is the head noun phrase.

Examples (Imbabura Quechua)

[kan	kwitsa	-man	kwintu	-ta	willa	-shka	-ka]	llapa
you	girl	to	story	ACCUSATIVE	tell	NOMINALIZER	TOPIC	very

sumaj -mi

pretty VALIDATOR

This example means either ‘The girl to whom you told the story is very pretty’ or ‘The story that you told to the girl is very pretty’.

Source:

Comrie 1989 146

Generic
	An internal relative clause is a kind of
	What is a relative clause?

Concept module: internal relative clause
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): I
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004