| dc.description.abstract | One of the main features of the correlative construction is the necessity of
an appropriate correlate (either a demonstrative or a pronoun) in the main
clause. While the syntactic features of the correlative construction are well
established, the relationship between the correlative clause and its correlate
remains unclear.
In this dissertation, I propose that the correlative clause is the overt pronunciation
of the index of the demonstrative. The correlative, therefore, does
not adjoin to IP (Dayal 1996) or the demonstrative (Bhatt 2003) but enters the
syntax as the indexical argument of the demonstrative phrase (Nunberg 1993;
Elbourne 2008). I then turn to the adverbial correlative clause, which involves
an adverbial relative phrase, and show that it is also the overt pronunciation
of the index and, further, that it is interpreted as a definite description and
contributes an individual of type e.
Having established the relationship between the correlative clause and its
correlate, I develop a new analysis of the semantic contribution of both the
single headed correlative, involving one relative phrase, and the multi-headed
correlative which involves multiple relative phrases. I propose that the correlative
gets its interpretation through a Q particle, QCOR, which raises from
the relative phrase to Spec-CP. It is QCOR which allows both adverbial and
nominal correlatives to have a definite interpretation. I present new data from
Hindi and Marwari which shows that the multi-headed correlative is basegenerated
inside of the main clause, at the highest demonstrative or below,
and denotes an ordered pair. Each member of that set is then an argument of
one of the demonstratives in the main clause.
Finally, if the proposed analysis is correct, then it should be follow that
other types of phrases can occur in the same position. Not only is this possible
in Hindi and Marwari, but sign languages and Mandarin Chinese allow overt
indices as well. | en_US |
