• Who ate my sandwich?
– Who is the subject of eat .
• Who did Pat see?
– Who is the direct object of see .
• Who did Leslie give the tickets to?
– Who is the object of a preposition.
• To whom did Leslie give the tickets.
– To whom is a prepositional phrase.
• Who is Chris taller than?
– Who is the object of a comparative.

• Question words begin with wh in English.
• The question word is extracted from the position that is normal for its grammatical relation (subject position, object position, etc.) and is placed at the beginning of the sentence.
• Some languages use wh-in-situ (in place):
– You saw what?
– In English this is used only for expressing surprise or to indicate that you missed part of the previous sentence.

• It was Pat who ate my sandwich.
–
Pat is subject of eat .
• It was Pat who Chris saw.
–
Pat is object of see .
• It was Pat who Leslie gave the tickets to.
–
Pat is object of a preposition.
• It was Pat who Chris was taller than.
–
Pat is object of comparison.

• It is not common for wh-extraction to be limited to certain grammatical relations.
• When it is restricted, it is generally restricted to subjects.
• Malagasy
– Subject can be extracted.
– Object cannot be extracted.
– Recipient cannot be extracted.
– Instrument and other prepositional phrases can be extracted.
– Passive voice and other voices create subjects so that they can be extracted.

NP
N-bar
S-bar
S
N-bar VP
Relative Clause
Det N NP V NP
The person who bought the house
Head
Relative Pronoun

• Head noun: person
• Sentence from which something is extracted.
–
Bought the house.
• Relative pronoun or complementizer:
– The person who bought the house.
– The person that bought the house.

• The whole thing is an NP and can be in any
NP position.
–
The person who bought the house is nice.
• Subject
– I met the person who bought the house .
• Object
– I talked to the person who bought the house .
• Object of a preposition.

• The extracted (relativized) can have any grammatical relation in English.
– I met the person who saw you.
• Subject is relativized.
– I met the person who you saw.
• Direct object is relativized.
– I met the person who you talked to.
• Object of a preposition is relativized.
– I met the person who you are taller than.
• Object of comparison is relativized.

• If something other than the subject is relativized in English, the relative pronoun or complementizer can be omitted:
– The person I met.
– The person I talked to.
– The person you are taller than.
– *The person bought the house.
• Not a relative clause.

• These are not relative clauses:
– [
NP
The person buying the house ] is rich.
– [
NP
The person tormented by nightmares ] couldn’t sleep.
• Can’t have relative pronouns or complementizers
(although that is not a criterion for being a relative clause in other languages):
– *the person who/that buying the house is rich
– *the person who/that tormented by nightmares is rich

• These are relative clauses:
– The person who is buying the house
– The person who is tormented by nightmares

•
Your language here.

• Subject can be relativized.
• Direct object cannot be relativized.
• Instrument cannot be relativized.
• Passive and other voices create new subjects so that they can be relativized.
• Compare to participial clauses in English.
– [
NP
The person [s washing the clothes]]
– * [
NP
The clothes [s the person washing]]
• Intendent to mean the clothes that the person is washing.
– [
NP
The clothes [s being washed by the person]]