Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Two relativization strategies in Czech: a constructional analysis

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2020

Abstract

The article presents a constructional analysis of a subgroup of Czech relative clauses (namely, those with an absolutive relativizer co), addressing specifically the question of the presence vs absence of the accusative resumptive pronoun in these clauses. Based on an earlier analysis of relevant corpus data concerning the differences in distribution (Fried 2010), we now concentrate on the constructional status of these patterns, with partial reference to other subtypes of the absolutive relative clauses.

Using the tools of Construction Grammar and exploring the notion of constructional maps, we propose organizing these patterns in a network of related constructions with shared as well as distinct characteristics; the network is further mapped into a particular functional space. One of the advantages of such a representation consists in its ability to include minority configurations, transitions from one pattern to another, and, in general, any areas of categorial fluidity.