Relative Constructions in European Non-Standard Varieties

498 Pages·2011·2.868 MB·Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 50

by  Adriano Murelli

Relative Constructions in European Non-Standard Varieties
Empirical Approaches
to Language Typology
50
Editors
Georg Bossong
Bernard Comrie
Yaron Matras
De Gruyter Mouton
Relative Constructions
in European
Non-Standard Varieties
by
Adriano Murelli
De Gruyter Mouton
ISBN 978-3-11-023878-5
e-ISBN 978-3-11-023879-2
ISSN 0933-761X
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Murelli,Adriano.
Relative constructions in European non-standard varieties / by
AdrianoMurelli.
p.cm.(cid:2)(Empiricalapproachestolanguagetypology;50)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-3-11-023878-5(alk.paper)
1.Languageandlanguages(cid:2)Variation. 2.Europe(cid:2)Languages(cid:2)
Variation 3. Grammar, Comparative and general (cid:2) Relative
clauses. 4.Grammar,Comparativeandgeneral(cid:2)Syntax. 5.Dia-
lectology. 6.Typology(Linguistics) I.Title.
P120.V37M87 2011
417(cid:2)dc23
2011033458
BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternetathttp://dnb.d-nb.de.
(cid:2)2011WalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin/Boston
Printing:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen
(cid:3)Printedonacid-freepaper
PrintedinGermany
www.degruyter.com
Jede Sprache erscheint so fortwährend auf der Suche nach einem
Gleichgewicht zwischen der extremen Vielfalt einer unbegrenzten
Anzahl von Varianten und der kodifizierten und stabilisierten Aus-
wahl von relativ begrenzten Untermengen dieser Varianten.
(Bernard Py)

Je sais que je tombe dans l’inexplicable quand j’affirme que la
réalité – cette notion si flottante –, la connaissance la plus exacte
possible des êtres est notre point de contact, et notre voie d’accès
aux choses qui dépassent la réalité.
(Marguerite Yourcenar)

La lingüística […] debe moverse constantemente entre los dos po-
los opuestos de lo concreto y de lo abstracto: subir de la compro-
bación empírica de los fenómenos concretos a la abstracción de
formas ideales y sistemáticas, y volver luego a los fenómenos con-
cretos, enriquecida por los conocimientos generales adquiridos en
la operación abstractiva.
(Eugenio Coseriu)

Acknowledgements
The present work is a revised version of my Ph.D. dissertation, which I
submitted and defended in summer 2009 at the University of Pavia. There
is a good number of people to whom I am indebted for supporting me
throughout the writing of my dissertation. First of all, I would like to thank
Giuliano Bernini for following my thesis in all its phases and providing
precious advice. Thank you also to Sonia Cristofaro for discussing with me
parts of my dissertation, thus contributing to improve its general structure
and especially the content of Part 1. Achim Rabus spurred me on through-
out all phases of my work and also read a good part of it, giving me valu-
able feedback, in particular on Slavic languages: I want him to know that I
am deeply grateful to him. I am also indebted to Christian Lehmann and
Caterina Mauri, with whom I discussed single issues of this work.
I first conceived the idea to write a dissertation on relative constructions
in non-standard varieties of European languages during my two years’
Master in European Linguistics at the University of Freiburg from 2004 to
2006. I am indebted to Bernd Kortmann, the director of the master degree
program, as well as to Stefan Pfänder, Christian Mair, Peter Auer and
Christian Voß for introducing me to functional-typological linguistics, to
Eurolinguistics and to the fascinating realm of language variation.
Thank you also to all informants who completed the questionnaires,
providing me with detailed information about the peculiarities of their
mother tongues: Milena Marić (BCS), Petăr Kehajov, Maria Manova (Bul-
garian), Matti Miestamo (Finnish), Ramona Baumgartner, Diana Heißler,
Sandra Kohllöffel, Anna Riester (German), Sofia Lampropoulou, Nikolaos
Mytilinaios (Greek), Valeria Cadau, Marianna Gionta (Italian), Jarosław
Aptacy, Anna Górska, Ewa Schalley (Polish), Albertino Moreira da Silva
Junior (Portuguese), Mădălina Chitez, Gabriela Diaconu (Rumanian), Na-
tal’ja Ilina, Filipp Lupov, Ol’ga Zacharova (Russian).
Finally, I owe thanks to Georg Bossong for the comments he provided
on my manuscript as an editor of the EALT series, to Julie Miess and
Marcia L. Schwartz from Mouton de Gruyter for their help during the pub-
lication process, to Chiara Mauri for carefully proofreading my English
and to Noah Bubenhofer for his help with the indexes. Last, but not least,
thanks to my friends and family for encouraging me throughout the past
few years – particularly to M., to whom this book is dedicated.

Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
List of figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
List of tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
List of abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Part 1. Theoretical and methodological premises . . . . . 5

1. Theoretical background . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1. Basic definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.1. Relative relations . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.2. Relative constructions . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.2. Theoretical framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.3. ‘Standard’ and ‘non-standard’ . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.3.1. Defining ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ . . . . . . 29
1.3.2. On the usefulness of distinguishing standard from
non-standard in linguistic research . . . . . . . 34
1.4. Relative clauses in European languages: the state of the art . . 37
1.5. Aims of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

2. Data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.1. Looking for non-standard constructions . . . . . . . . 47
2.2. Language sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.3. A review of data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.3.1. Linguistic evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.3.2. Grammars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.3.3. Linguistic studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.3.4. Questionnaires . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.3.5. Language corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.3.6. The World Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.3.7. Language corpora vs. the World Wide Web . . . . . 68
2.3.8. Historical evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.3.9. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72