Re: Mandarin Relative Clauses?

On Fri, 22 Dec 2000, John Cowan wrote:

> Eric Christopherson wrote:
>  > How does "whoever" fit into this? To me it sounds perfectly
> grammatical to
>  > say "Whoever knows his own father is a wise child" (although I must admit
>  > that it seems a bit odd semantically, since it would imply that
> adults who
>  > know their own fathers are wise children).
>
> Indeed.  The true underlying structure of "It's a wise child..."
> is "a child who knows his own father is a wise child".
>
> I don't know why there is a difference between "who" and "whoever".
The difference lies in the fact that "who" requires a restrictor while
"whoever" does not. That is, anytime you use "who" in a relative clause or
a free relative, there is some person or class of persons which is
(implicitly) serving as the head of the relative. The clause modifies that
implicit referant. In this case, the restrictor for "who" is "child", as
you point out with your underlying structure.

"Whoever" on the other hand, does not have a restrictor. Indeed, it canot.
"Whoever" must be free to range over anybody in the world.

Frankly, I don't believe that this sentence is an example of extraposition
due to a heavy relative clause. I think instead that it is a necessity of
copular sentences. Note that the "light" relative you used before also
cannot function as the subject of a copular sentence.

*Who doesn't work is a lazy person.
Whoever doesn't work is a lazy person.

*Who sings well is a talented person.
Whoever sings well is a talented person.

I don't know why this should be the case, but copulars often have unusual
properties. If you are interested in looking into the issue, the best
place to start would be the work of Andrea Moro, who never words on
anything but copulars.

Marcus