2

Is there a language w/out dependent clauses, i.e. one in which you couldn't say e.g. "I know that x is here" w/ a clause, where the main clause is in italic and dependent in bold (and that overlaps, because you may analyze it as belonging to this or that). I suppose the lack of dependent clauses might be possible if a language would exclusively use a different constituent (i.e. not a sentence or clause) to convey the same meaning. Or maybe you lack so complex syntax in some pidgins (which would be unlikely to generalize to full-blown natural languages)

NOTE: The original question was about "relative clauses", which seems to be a proper subset of dependent clauses that I intended it to be about

Improve this question
1
  • 1
    Yes, relative clauses are a (large, but proper) subset of subordinate or dependent clauses (those two terms are identical). And there is a debate raging now in syntactic circles (well, some of them) about whether Pirahã has any subordinate clauses at all, or not. Most linguists these days don't really care much; languages vary a lot, after all.
    – jlawler
    May 30, 2019 at 21:35

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

It seems Pirahã may qualify (my stress):

Since we do not find unambiguous relative clauses in the corpus, we cannot use them to conclude that Pirahã has recursive embedding.

As Pirahã isn't a pidgin, this could be taken as a tentative evidence that such full-blown languages may exist

PS.

...the lack of relative clauses might be possible if a language would exclusively use a different constituent (i.e. not a sentence or clause) to convey the same meaning.

It might be also possible if you were always compelled to use a separate sentence, e.g. "I know something. It is that x is here." Maybe this is the case in Pirahã

EDIT: If "relative clause" is not the same as "dependent clause", as suggested by @amegnusen, my answer explodes (assuming the authors of 1 make the distinction, which is not clear)

Improve this answer
1

There are many kinds of dependent clause. The example you provided is a content clause and not a relative clause.

In Riffian, depending on the dependent clause used, this one can be introduced by a subordinator or not. There is a subordinator "i" for the relative clauses. But nothing is used for the content clauses.

Improve this answer
1
  • I see. We're probably using different terminology. This seems to be my fault, as I meant a catch-all term like dependent clause when I said "relative clause". As for Riffian, since it has both relative and content clauses, it clearly has dependent clauses
    – jaam
    May 30, 2019 at 15:10

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.