Reduced relative clause
Encyclopedia
A reduced relative clause is a relative clause
that is not marked by an overt complementizer
(such as that). Reduced relative clauses often give rise to ambiguity
or garden path effects, and have been a common topic of psycholinguistic
study, especially in the field of sentence processing.
(also called "subordinate clause"), that serve to modify a noun
. In English as in most other Indo-European languages
, relative clauses are often introduced by a relative pronoun
—one of the wh- word
s "who", "whom", "whose", "what", or "which", or by that.
Reduced relative clauses, on the other hand, have no relative pronoun introducing them. The example below contrasts an English non-reduced relative clause and reduced relative clause.
, the similarity between the active
past tense
form of verbs (i.e., "John kicked the ball") and the passive
past tense (i.e., "the ball was kicked") gives rise to a special form of reduced relative clause, called the reduced object relative passive clause (so called because the noun being modified is the direct object of the relative clause, and the relative clause is in passive voice), the most famous example of which is
While reduced relative clauses are not the only structures that create garden path sentences in English (other forms of garden path sentences include those caused by lexical ambiguity, or words that can have more than one meaning), they are the "classic" example of garden path sentences, and have been the subject of the most research.
information or information from the context
can affect how a reader or listener initially parses a sentence. For example, one study compared sentences in which the garden path effect was more likely because the reduced relative verb was one that was likely to be used as a main verb for its subject (as in "the defendant examined...[by the lawyer]", where the subject "defendant" is animate and could be the do-er of the action) and sentences in which the garden path effect was less likely (as in "the evidence examined...[by the lawyer]", where the subject "evidence" is not animate and thus could not be doing the examining). Reduced relative clauses have also been used in studies of second language acquisition
, to compare how native speakers handled reduced relatives and how non-native speakers handle them.
In languages with head-final relative clauses, such as Chinese, Japanese
, and Turkish
, non-reduced relative clauses may also cause temporary ambiguity because the complementizer does not precede the relative clause (and thus a person reading or hearing the relative clause has no "warning" that they are in a relative clause).
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
that is not marked by an overt complementizer
Complementizer
In linguistics , a complementizer is a syntactic category roughly equivalent to the term subordinating conjunction in traditional grammar. For example, the word that is generally called a complementizer in English sentences like Mary believes that it is raining...
(such as that). Reduced relative clauses often give rise to ambiguity
Ambiguity
Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...
or garden path effects, and have been a common topic of psycholinguistic
Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were largely philosophical ventures, due mainly to a lack of cohesive data on how the...
study, especially in the field of sentence processing.
Description
Relative clauses are a special class of dependent clauseDependent clause
In linguistics, a dependent clause is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence. Dependent clauses modify the independent clause of a sentence or serve as a component of it...
(also called "subordinate clause"), that serve to modify a noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
. In English as in most other Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
, relative clauses are often introduced by a relative pronoun
Relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. It is called a relative pronoun because it relates the relative clause to the noun that it modifies. In English, the relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, whosever, whosesoever, which, and, in some...
—one of the wh- word
Interrogative word
In linguistics, an interrogative word is a function word used for the item interrupted in an information statement. Interrogative words are sometimes called wh-words because most of English interrogative words start with wh-...
s "who", "whom", "whose", "what", or "which", or by that.
Reduced relative clauses, on the other hand, have no relative pronoun introducing them. The example below contrasts an English non-reduced relative clause and reduced relative clause.
| Relative clause: | The man | who/that I saw | was big. |
| Subject of main clause |
Relative clause | Predicate of main clause |
|
| Reduced relative clause: | The man | I saw | was big. |
| Subject of main clause |
Reduced relative clause | Predicate of main clause |
|
English
In EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, the similarity between the active
Active voice
Active voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages....
past tense
Past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
form of verbs (i.e., "John kicked the ball") and the passive
Passive voice
Passive voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. Passive is used in a clause whose subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb. That is, the subject undergoes an action or has its state changed. A sentence whose theme is marked as grammatical subject is...
past tense (i.e., "the ball was kicked") gives rise to a special form of reduced relative clause, called the reduced object relative passive clause (so called because the noun being modified is the direct object of the relative clause, and the relative clause is in passive voice), the most famous example of which is
The horse raced past the barn fell.In sentences such as this, when the reader or hearer encounters the verb, he or she can interpret it in two different ways: as a main verb, or the first verb of a reduced relative clause. Linguist David W. Carrol gives the example of "the florist sent...", which could either go on to form a sentence such as "the florist sent the flowers to the elderly widow" (in which "sent" is the main verb), or one such as "the florist [who was] sent the flowers was very pleased" (in which "sent" is the beginning of a reduced relative clause). Sentences like this often produce a garden path effect—an effect whereby a reader begins a sentence with one interpretation, and later is forced to backtrack and re-analyze the sentence's structure. The diagram below illustrates the garden path effect in the sentence "the florist sent the flowers was pleased," where (1) represents the initial structure assigned to the sentence, (2) represents the garden path effect elicited when the reader encounters "was" and has nowhere to put it, and (3) represents the re-analysis of the sentence as containing a reduced relative clause.
While reduced relative clauses are not the only structures that create garden path sentences in English (other forms of garden path sentences include those caused by lexical ambiguity, or words that can have more than one meaning), they are the "classic" example of garden path sentences, and have been the subject of the most research.
Use in psycholinguistic research
Across languages, reduced relative clauses often give rise to temporary ambiguity (garden path effects), since the first word of a reduced clause may initially be interpreted as part of the main clause. Therefore, reduced relative clauses have been the subject of "an enormous number of experiments" in psycholinguistics, especially for investigating whether semanticSemantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
information or information from the context
Context (language use)
Context is a notion used in the language sciences in two different ways, namely as* verbal context* social context- Verbal context :...
can affect how a reader or listener initially parses a sentence. For example, one study compared sentences in which the garden path effect was more likely because the reduced relative verb was one that was likely to be used as a main verb for its subject (as in "the defendant examined...[by the lawyer]", where the subject "defendant" is animate and could be the do-er of the action) and sentences in which the garden path effect was less likely (as in "the evidence examined...[by the lawyer]", where the subject "evidence" is not animate and thus could not be doing the examining). Reduced relative clauses have also been used in studies of second language acquisition
Second language acquisition
Second-language acquisition or second-language learning is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the name of the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process...
, to compare how native speakers handled reduced relatives and how non-native speakers handle them.
In languages with head-final relative clauses, such as Chinese, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, non-reduced relative clauses may also cause temporary ambiguity because the complementizer does not precede the relative clause (and thus a person reading or hearing the relative clause has no "warning" that they are in a relative clause).