I wrote this for the CamLangSci blog last month… I have been working on reconstruction in relative clauses quite a bit recently, so this represents one way of desaturating my brain. That is not to imply that it is a tedious topic – far from it. Reconstruction effects in relative clauses give us a fascinating clue about how these constructions are built and how our interpretive faculties ‘read’ such structures. I have tried to avoid technicalities and jargon as much as possible, and to keep this blog entry a reasonable length whilst also getting to the core of some very deep questions in current syntactic theory. So, let’s get started.
We’ll start by considering the following data (if two elements have the same subscript, it means that the two elements refer to the same individual; if the subscripts are different, the elements refer to different individuals. The * means that the sentence is ungrammatical).
(1) a. Samx likes the picture of himselfx.
b. *Samx likes the picture of himx.
c. Samx thinks that Rosie likes the picture of himx.
In (1a), himself must refer to Sam. In (1b), him must not refer to Sam but must refer to some other singular male individual (some speakers find (1b) acceptable (Reinhart & Reuland 1993), but I and most other people I have asked do not). (1c) is ambiguous: him can either refer to Sam (as shown by the subscripts) or to some other singular male individual. The pattern in (1) is traditionally captured by the Binding Conditions (Conditions A and B to be more precise) (Chomsky, 1981). The Binding Conditions are quite technical so I won’t go into them here. What is important is the pattern in (1).
What happens if we relativise picture of X, i.e. modify picture of X with a relative clause?
(2) a. The picture of himselfx that Samx likes is quite flattering.
b. ?/*The picture of himx that Samx likes is quite flattering.
c. The picture of himx that Samx thinks that Rosie likes is quite flattering.
As we can see, the pattern in (2) is exactly the same as in (1). This suggests that we are interpreting the head of the relative clause, i.e. picture of himself, in the object position of like, since then (2) can be interpreted in the same way as (1). This in turn suggests that the head of the relative clause originated inside the relative clause and was moved to the position in which it is pronounced. However, when it comes to interpreting (rather than pronouncing) the structure, we ‘reconstruct’ the movement and interpret the head of the relative clause in its original position (see Bianchi, 1999; Kayne, 1994; Schachter, 1973; Vergnaud, 1974). For example, (2a) is interpreted as (3), where the bold copy is the one being interpreted. Note that this bold copy is not pronounced.
(3) The picture of himselfx that Samxlikes(the)picture of himselfxis quite flattering.
The bold the is in brackets because technically the determiner the does not reconstruct with the head of the relative clause picture of himself (Bianchi, 2000; Cinque, 2013; Kayne, 1994; Williamson, 1987 on the so-called indefiniteness effect on the copy internal to the relative clause). Reconstruction thus captures the similarities between (1) and (2) in a straightforward way.
In (2), the head of the relative clause served as the subject of the main clause. What happens when it serves as the direct object of the main clause?
(4) a. *Mrs. Cottony hates the picture of himselfx that Samxlikes.
b. ?/*Mrs. Cottony hates the picture of himx that Samxlikes.
c. Mrs. Cottony hates the picture of himx that Samx thinks that Rosie likes.
If the head of the relative is picture of him, the pattern is the same as in (1) and (2), which suggests that reconstruction has taken place. However, (4a) is ungrammatical for all the speakers that I have asked (this result is highly significant given what is usually said in the literature). This result is unexpected, especially if reconstruction is available in (4b) and (4c). If reconstruction were available, picture of himself should be able to reconstruct to the direct object position of likes inside the relative clause where it could co-refer with Sam, just like in (3). However, the only interpretation available in (4a) is the ungrammatical one where himself is trying to co-refer with Mrs. Cotton suggesting that reconstruction is impossible.
The difference between (4a) and (2a) lies in whether there is an element in the main clause that himself could get its reference from. In (2a), there is no such element, so picture of himself is forced to reconstruct so that himself gets a reference. In (4a), there is an element, albeit an unsuitable one. This suggests that the Binding Condition which allows himself to get its reference from another element applies blindly/automatically: himself gets bound to Mrs. Cotton automatically, which prevents reconstruction occurring. Later on, when it is time to interpret the binding relation, we discover that we were wrong to have bound himselftoMrs. Cotton, but by this time it is too late to perform reconstruction. This suggests that interpretation of syntactic structure only happens after all syntactic operations have finished. If it didn’t, we might expect that we could repair the mistake in (4a) by reconstruction. However, this is not what we find.
The same effect is also found in other constructions. Based on Browning (1987: 162-165), Brody (1995: 92) shows that (5) is acceptable suggesting that picture of himself has reconstructed to the direct object position of buy (the example is slightly adapted).
(5) This picture of himselfx is easy to make Johnxbuy.
However, reconstruction is blocked if there is a potential element that himself could get its reference from, even if it turns out later to be unsuitable (Brody, 1995: 92).
(6) *Maryy expected those pictures of himselfx to be easy to make Johnxbuy.
We have only touched the surface on reconstruction in relative clauses here (there are more reconstruction effects and more subtleties that I have been working on but which would take too long to lay out here). What we have concluded is that reconstruction is generally available in relative clauses (at least in English). This tells us that relative clauses are constructed with a copy of the head of the relative clause inside the relative clause itself. The problem is how to choose which copies to interpret. It seems that there are structural conditions which force certain copies to be interpreted, i.e. the choice is not completely free. Explaining what these conditions are can thus provide a fascinating clue about how the human mind works (and how it doesn’t).
If you’re keen to find out more, Sportiche (2006) gives a good overview of reconstruction effects and Fox (2000) develops a nice account of how interpretation interacts with syntactic structure.
References
Bianchi, V. (1999). Consequences of Antisymmetry: Headed Relative Clauses. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bianchi, V. (2000). The raising analysis of relative clauses: a reply to Borsley. Linguistic Inquiry,31(1), 123–140.
Brody, M. (1995). Lexico-Logical Form: A Radically Minimalist Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Browning, M. (1987). Null Operator Constructions. PhD dissertation, MIT.
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
Cinque, G. (2013). Typological Studies: Word Order and Relative Clauses. New York/London: Routledge.
Fox, D. (2000). Economy and Semantic Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kayne, R. S. (1994). The Antisymmetry of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Schachter, P. (1973). Focus and relativization. Language,49(1), 19–46.
Sportiche, D. (2006). Reconstruction, Binding, and Scope. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. Volume IV (pp. 35–93). Oxford: Blackwell.
Vergnaud, J.-R. (1974). French relative clauses. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.
Williamson, J. S. (1987). An Indefiniteness Restriction for Relative Clauses in Lakhota. In E. J. Reuland & A. G. B. ter Meulen (Eds.), The Representation of (In)definiteness (pp. 168–190). Cambridge, MA.
Schooled by Youtube: CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON THE MAN WHO KILLED JIM CROW
[ In this video we found, we learn more about The Black Then Channel is an all-black history, news and commentary channel. Black Then features the untold stories of african american game changers, icons, and legends. We use videos by today’s best historians, thinkers, creators, commentators, and speakers to educate people about our past. The […]
Except they would drool endlessly. Like neopolitan mastiffs of the cat world.
The other, less extreme saber tooths had bone pockets to hide their fangs in. They would be covered by the lower lip.
Smilodon had no such bone pocket, and they tended to fracture their teeth a lot, so they probably had no protection.
(Here’s a believed Homotherium depicted from life, with a big meaty chin)
This is the most believable example of Smilodon tooth protection I’ve seen, but they would have had to have very close, dry lips, not constantly slobbery mastiff ones:
question: why does Ark Encounter, a religious propaganda “museum” that, among other things, proclaims that a) Noah hand-fed pterosaurs and b) the government is covering up evidence of a second biblical flood on Mars, have some of the BEST prehistoric reconstructions I’ve ever seen?
the top guy is Pakicetus, mother of modern whales. next is a Dicynodont, Cotylorhynchus (a RIDICULOUS stem-mammal), and an Istiodactylid pterosaur.
but truthfully, what I’m most desperate to see is the diorama of giants being fed to a beautiful Carnotaurus
@pangur-and-grim Not just HIS bankroll, sadly. Also a looooot of money from local taxpayers sunk into that crazy ass massive propaganda boat. It’s right up the highway from me in KY. The Ark people talked the county and state into ENORMOUS tax credits and incentives because it was going to be soooooo successful and create insane tourist dollars and traffic…but it didn’t…because it’s *CRAZY TOWNE.*
I can only hope that it’ll go bankrupt, be sold off, and turn into a kitschy, tongue in cheek roadside attraction like those in Rock City outside Mammoth Cave.
this is in response to my tags:
oh dear, that make it significantly less fun
I’m also extremely impressed with the accuracy and realism of their animal models.
I bet the artists were like “Meh, a job’s a job, baby”
And I find it strange how creationists love to show prehistoric animals on the ark.
If I were a creationist, I would find it the perfect excuse to say “…well, those animals all died in the flood, because they didn’t have enough room on the ark”, or something.
(Remember, back when dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals were beginning to be discovered and named, in the days of Georges Cuvier, the strict, unbending belief was that nothing could EVER go extinct.)
I tried to found more modern reconstructions for gorgonopsidaes, but I failed. So I just did one rough example by myself. Furry gorgonops with lips and vybrisses, possibly Inostrancevia. Not scientific, just an example to show to friend :)
All land vertebrates have lips- Change my mind.
Crocodiles are the only ones who don’t, but they aren’t technically land animals. Birds don’t count, since they lack proper jaws.
Since Inostrancevia even had a jaw “pocket” to fit their saber teeth into, there is no sane reason to think their teeth were out in the open - unless some rock hard (pun intended) proof to the contrary, that they were really, really unique, comes to light.
Some of the skull reconstructions i did a few months back :> Process pics in the bottom row. Both skulls found.
I had a bone box that was basically collecting skulls and parts too beaten up for my liking for YEARS (don’t take me wrong, i adore worn out and damaged skulls but sometimes its just too much to be aesthetically pleasing) and i finally fixed some of them up.
Both kitty and nutria were in extremely poor shapes, i even considered tossing the cat because… look at it, it was just loose parts (1st image, bottom row) but im really glad i didnt in the end. The diprosopus mod might not be the bees knees BUT for my first time reconstructing a skull i think its alright!
The nutria (which i named Berberis) i just love with my whole heart, the pictures might not convey it as good as i’d like to but you cant tell its a reconstruction until closer scrutiny. Really happy with them all in all.
sculpting skulls is a BI*CH, especially when you want a somewhat convincing mod… its just that the clay tilts and falls under its own weight, and you cant really stick the clay on the skull because then HOW are you supposed to bake the clay without damaging the bone? I managed the fitting by wetting the bone (poly clay wont stick to wet surfaces ;) and then just very delicately removing the shaped clay bits, hardening them, checking if its still fits the bone, filing, building on the shapes and elements on the “skeleton” (kitty process shows it off well, 2nd pic) and then filing more. Its a trip and a half, took a lot of time but im super satisfied knowing i can do it.
“Funerary altar of Iulia Victorina. Marble. Last quarter of the 1st century CE. The altar is dedicated to the en:manes of Iulia Victorina dead at 10 years and 5 months old. Purchase 1863. Louvre museum (Paris, France). Portrait on the front of the 10 year old girl at her death, garlanded in a floral frame, and on the back as the young matrona she would never become. Trees on each (side). Color by @chapps on twitter.
While Julia Victorina is only one child in the unhappy statistic that half of all Roman children died by the age of ten, her death in the last quarter of the 1st century CE is personalized by the unique and costly monument her parents set up in her memory. With this elegant altar, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, Gaius Julius Saturninus and Lucilia Procula, who are otherwise unknown by rank, ancestry, or situation, memorialized their grief and hopes for a young daughter taken from them prematurely. The monument would have been placed in a family tomb and held a cinerary urn containing the child’s ashes. It is a rectangular block of white marble, elaborately carved on all four sides and crowned by a marble cover gracefully decorated with motifs (mouldings, volutes, and blossoms) that echo those carved on the front and back of the lower stone. The front of the altar bears the dedicatory inscription and features a portrait bust in high relief of the lovely face of a girl, framed by a wide border of acanthus leaves and variegated flowers, symbols in the Mediterranean world of eternal life. Julia Victorina, gazing pensively off to her right, wears ball-shaped pendent earrings, probably of gold; her shoulders are draped, her hair is styled almost boyishly and is crowned by a crescent moon, at once a symbol of eternity and association with Diana in her role as the moon-Goddess. On the back of the altar she appears again, similarly framed with botanicals, but now as a young matrona, as her parents had hoped in a few years to enjoy her; her face is solemn and thinner but recognizable as the child she was. She looks directly at the viewer, wearing the married woman’s stola, a palla draped over one shoulder and the same pendent earrings; her hair is arranged in a more matronly style, topped by a radiate crown that symbolizes her apotheosis in the heavens and her immortality. The short sides of the altar are decorated with a flourishing laurel tree, an evergreen sacred to Apollo, God of the sun; within its branches hover two birds, possibly ravens, his sacred bird, seen here together with laurel-crowned Apollo in his shrine. This extraordinary altar, with its portrait busts and floral designs promising immortality, offers moving testimony to the grief of Victorina’s parents over the loss of a beloved child.
The dedicatory inscription is crowded into the space below the child’s bust, which awkwardly divides the girl’s cognomen. The words are written in square capitals over five lines of diminishing size, with prominence given to the Di Manes and the girl’s name. The letters are well formed and centered, with medial dots (interpuncts) separating the words in lines 3-6.
Latin:
D[is] M[anibus]
IVLIAE VIC TORINAE
QVAE• VIX[it]• ANN[is] • X• MENS[ibus]• V•
C[aius]• IVLIVS• SATVRNINVS• ET
LVCILIA• PROCVLA• PARENTES
FILIAE• DVLCISSIMAE• FECERVNT
English:
To the spirits of the dead
Julia Victorina
Who lived for ten years and five months
Gaius Julius Saturninus and
Lucilia Procula
Parents of this sweetest daughter
Had this monument made
Notes to Funerary Inscription for Victorina:
Di Manes, m. pl. the collective spirits of the dead, the divine spirits. DM is a common abbreviation for the dedication of a funerary monument to the spirits of the dead and thus is in the dative case. These letters or the words they stand for are regularly found at the head of funerary inscriptions dating from the end of the 1st century BCE through the 2nd century CE.
Iulia, -ae f. Julia is the proper name of women born into the gens Iulia. Victorina appears to have inherited the nomen gentilicium from her father. The name of the deceased is either in the dative case as the dedicatee of the inscription, or the genitive as the possessor of the DM.
Victorina, -ae f. The dead girl’s cognomen.
menses, menses m. month. Both annis and mensibus are ablatives of time following vixit. Some inscriptions included days as well.
Saturninus, -i m. The cognomen of Victorina’s father is found during the Republic and the Empire. There was a centurian named Gaius Iulius Saturninus who came from Chios and served under the Flavians in a unit of Spaniards in Egypt, but no firm connection can be made.
Lucilia, -ae f. Lucilia is the proper name of women born into the gens Lucilia; Victorina’s mother’s cognomen is Procula.
parens, -entis m./f. parent. It is in the nominative plural, in apposition with Saturninus and Procula, who are the subjects of the verb fecerunt.
dulcis, -e sweet, lovely, dear, kind. The adjective is in the superlative degree. It modifies filiae; both are in the dative case, in apposition with Iuliae Victorinae.
[hoc monumentum] this phrase normally follows the verb of dedication (fecit/fecerunt) in funerary inscriptions. Monumentum is the regular word for a Roman tombstone. Sometimes the entire formula is omitted as unnecessary or for lack of space or money.”
