External Relative Clause

Overview

An external relative clause is a grammatical construction where a relative clause modifies a noun phrase that is not the head of the noun phrase within which the relative clause is embedded. This can lead to complex syntactic structures and potential ambiguity.

Key Concepts

The defining characteristic of an external relative clause is its departure from the typical internal modification. Instead of modifying a noun within its immediate scope, it reaches ‘outside’ to modify a more distant noun phrase.

Types and Structures

While less common than internal relatives, external relatives can manifest in various ways:

• Non-projecting relative clauses: These are often seen as a type of external relative.
• Post-head relative clauses: In some languages, relatives can appear after the head noun but still modify an element outside the main phrase.

Deep Dive: Ambiguity and Interpretation

The primary challenge with external relative clauses is their potential to create syntactic ambiguity. Readers or listeners may struggle to determine which noun phrase the clause is intended to modify.

Consider the sentence: ‘I saw the dog that chased the cat that barked.’ The clause ‘that barked’ could potentially modify ‘cat’ (internal) or ‘dog’ (external, if interpreted as the dog barking).

Applications in Linguistics

The study of external relative clauses is crucial for:

• Understanding syntactic theory and how grammatical relations are established across phrases.
• Analyzing cross-linguistic variation in relative clause placement and modification.
• Developing computational models for natural language processing, particularly in parsing and semantic interpretation.

Challenges and Misconceptions

A common misconception is that external relative clauses are always ungrammatical or nonsensical. While they can be difficult to process and may lead to ambiguity, they are recognized phenomena in many languages.

The challenge lies not in their existence, but in their precise structural analysis and the cognitive load they impose.

FAQs

What is the difference between an internal and external relative clause?

An internal relative clause modifies a noun phrase that is the head of the noun phrase it is embedded within. An external one modifies a noun phrase outside of its immediate scope.

Are external relative clauses common?

They are generally less common and often more marked than internal relative clauses, but they do occur and are studied in linguistics.