Relativizer

Relativizer

In linguistics, a relativizer is a conjunction used to indicate a relative clause. Not all languages use relativizers; most Indo-European languages use relative pronouns instead, and some languages, such as Japanese, rely solely on word order to indicate relative clauses. Languages that do use relativizers include most Semitic languages.

For a survey of how various languages indicate relative clauses, see "Relative clause".

Relativizer versus complementizer (across languages)

Israeli

"The Israeli complementizer "she-" [∫e] ‘that’ can be traced back to the Hebrew complementizer "she-" ‘that’, which derives from the Hebrew relativizer "she-" ‘that’. There is no consensus about the origin of the latter. It might be a shortened form of the Hebrew relativizer "‘asher" ‘that’, which is related to Akkadian "‘ashru" ‘place’ (cf. Semitic *"‘athar") [...] Alternatively, Hebrew "‘asher" derived from "she-", or it was a convergence of Proto-Semitic "dhu" (cf. Aramaic "dī") and "‘asher". The Hebrew relativizer "‘ashér" is the origin of the Israeli relativizer "ashér" ‘that’, which is much less common than the Israeli relativizer "she-" ‘that’. Whereas Israeli "she-" functions both as complementizer and relativizer, "ashér" can only function as a relativizer." [A quote from p. 79 of Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2006), "Complement Clause Types in Israeli", "Complementation: A Cross-Linguistic Typology", edited by R. M. W. Dixon and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 72-92 (Chapter 3).]

References


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