A Constraint-Based Treatment of English That-Relative Constructions

This paper proposes a constraint-based HPSG analysis on the English that-relative constructions. The categorial status of the relative that (R-that) has long been disputed: a complementizer vs. a relative pronoun. This paper can be considered as a theoretical support for Van der Auwera s (1985) view of the R-that as a strong pronoun. The analysis is theoretically based on Sag s (1997) multiple inheritance type hierarchy analysis of wh-relative clauses. The main proposals are as follows: (i) the R-that clause is a subtype of wh-relative clauses (Sag 1997), but it should be distinguished from the genuine wh-relative clauses (pace Sag 1997), (ii) the R-that clause has at least two subtypes, pronominal and adverbial R-that clauses, and each subtype carries its own constructional constraint incorporable into the multiple inheritance type hierarchy of relative clauses, and (iii) the adverbial R-that is treated as an adverbial bare-NP in terms of Larson (1985).