Chinese relative clauses: restrictive, descriptive or appositive? - Lear

FRANCESCA DEL GOBBO
of individuals (type ) and they are always adjoined to the noun they
modify, while appositive relative clauses are propositions (type t) and they
detach from the noun they modify after Spell-Out. The only feature that
appositive adjectives and appositive relative clauses have in common and
that differentiates them from restrictive relative clauses is their ability to
modify singular terms.
There are still two important questions to be answered: if we assume, as I
do, that appositive adjectives and restrictive relative clauses are both
predicates of individuals, what is ultimately responsible for their main
difference, namely the ability versus inability to modify singular terms?
And, maybe more interestingly, what allows Chinese relative clauses to act
like appositive adjectives and prevents English relative clauses to do so? My
suspicion at this point is that answering the second question will lead us to
an answer for the first one, but I leave this for future research.
References
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