Syntax/Semantics Seminar – Anand Abraham

Internal determiners in Pular relative clauses

This talk presents novel data from Pular, an Atlantic language spoken in Guinea. I show that in Pular, it is possible to express the determiner for a relative clause in a clause-internal position, directly after any verb. Based on this, I argue for the following claims. First, Pular provides evidence for a head-raising analysis of relative clauses, with the head noun and determiner both originating in a clause-internal position. Second, heads of Pular relative clauses move successive-cyclically to their final position through vP-specifiers, and it is at these positions where the determiner may be realized.