Agnieszka Mykowiecka
Polish Relatives with the Marker 'co'
Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences


Polish Relatives with the Marker 'co'

In Polish, like in other Slavic languages (Oberlan,1978; 
Avgustinowa, 1996) or in English, there exists relativum generale 
(relative marker) - a relative word uninflected for case with no 
gender and number assigned.  This word is a homonym of the 
nominative form of the relative pronoun 'co'. Clauses beginning 
with the marker 'co' are not very common in contemporary Polish.  
Their usage is practically limited to the spoken language, but 
nonetheless they are fully grammatical.

The relative marker is used in contexts where the relative pronoun 
'ktory' or adverbial pronouns can be used.  The distinguishing 
feature of the clauses beginning with 'co' is the fact that they 
contain no gap - the relativized element has to be repeated as a 
resumptive pronoun (in a form of a weak form of personal 
pronouns,(1a), or a possessive pronoun,(1b)). 

(1) a. spotkalem kelnera, co   go  /*jego/* widywalem na Plantach  
       I met     a waiter that him /him  /  I saw     in the park    
      'I met a waiter whom I often saw in the park'   
    b. spotkalem kelnera, co   jego brata  widywalem na Plantach  
       I met     a waiter that his brother I saw     in the park  
      'I met a waiter whose brother I often saw in the park'

In relative clauses beginning with the marker, the agreement takes 
place between the modified noun and a resumptive pronoun. The 
rules for number and gender agreement and case assignment are the 
same as in the case of relative pronouns, (1). 

If a modified noun plays the role of the subject, a resumptive 
pronoun cannot occur. The agreement of number and gender between 
the verb and the modified noun has to be nevertheless 
preserved,(2).

(2)   ona, co (*ona) wracala zwykle tak pozno  
      she that came back usually so late   
     'she who usually came back so late' 

We present an HPSG analysis of the relative clauses 
beginning with the marker 'co'.  The analysis is based on Sag's 
(1997) approach consisting in expressing generalizations about 
linguistic constructions by means of multiple inheritance of 
specific constraints imposed on elements of a hierarchy of phrase 
types.  

We assume that resumptive pronouns introduce superficial gaps.  As 
usually, the occurrence of a gap is notified by a non-empty value 
of the SLASH attribute. In the case of "normal" extraction the 
SLASH value is introduced by a special, phonologically empty, gap 
object.  Resumptive pronouns can not introduce the same type of a 
gap, because real gaps and resumptive pronouns cannot be used 
interchangeably, (1a).  Thus, we assign (after Abeille et al.  
1997) different types to the values of the LOCAL attribute of 
resumptive pronouns (the type 'prl') and other objects (the type 
'nprl').
Introducing two types of gaps allows also for the representation 
of the impossibility of the preposition stranding in Polish: 
prepositions' dependents cannot be "usual" gaps i.e. their SLASH 
value cannot contain objects of the type 'nprl'. 

In order to analyze clauses in which the modified noun plays the 
role of a subject we assume that 'pro' can also be treated as a 
resumptive pronoun and can optionally introduce a non-empty SLASH 
value of type 'prl'.

The constraints imposed on objects of the type representing 
marker-based relative clauses,(4), state that they modify noun 
phrases whose index is identical with the index introduced by a 
resumptive pronoun.
(4)	mrk-rel	 
   	SLASH {} 
    	HEAD[ MOD  NP [INDEX [1] ]]  
    	HEAD-DTR [ SLASH  prl  [INDEX [1]]] 
        NON-HD-DTRS <[MARKING mrk_co ]>  

References 

Abeille, A., Godard, D.  & Sag, I.  (1997) French Relative       
  Clauses, materials from Summer School in Logic, Language and    
  Information, Aix au Province.
Bondaruk, A.  (1995) Resumptive Pronouns in English and Polish.        
  In Licensing in Syntax and Phonology, ed. Edumnd Gussman. PASE 
  Studies and Monographs, Vol 1, 27-55. Folium, Lublin.
Borsley, R. (1989) Phrase Structure Grammar and the Barriers 
  Conception of Clause Structure. Linguistics, 27, 843:863.
Sag I.A.(1997) English Relative Clause Constructions, Journal of 
  Linguistics,33.
Swidzinski, M. (1992) Gramatyka formalna jezyka polskiego, 
  University of Warsaw.
Witkos, J. (1993) Some Aspects of Phrasal Movement in English and 
  Polish, PHD Thesis, Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza, Poznan.