Relative Clauses: Structure and Variation in Everyday English (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Series Number 161)

Using novel examples from live, unscripted radio/TV broadcasts and the internet, this path-breaking book will force us to reconsider the nature of everyday English and its complex interplay of syntactic, pragmatic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors. Uncovering unusual types of non-standard relative clauses, Andrew Radford develops theoretically sophisticated analyses in an area that has traditionally hardly been touched on: that of nonstandard (yet not clearly dialectal) variation in English. Making sense of a huge amount of data, the book demonstrates that some types of non-standard relative clauses have a complex syntactic structure of their own in which the relation between the relative clause and its antecedent is either syntactically encoded or pragmatic in nature, while others come about as a result of hypercorrection, and yet others arise from processing errors. "This book examines the syntax of relative clauses in colloquial English, and is divided into four main chapters. The first (= this chapter) provides an introduction to the main types of relative clause found in standard registers and varieties of English, which typically contain an (overt or null) relativiser associated with a gap lower down in the structure. Chapters 2-4 provide a detailed description and analysis of three types of relative clause found in colloquial English, but not in standard varieties/registers. Chapter 2 examines the syntax of resumptive relatives, so called because they contain a resumptive expression which most frequently comprises a personal pronoun like that italicised in 'He's the kind of player that you wonder how he ever got into the team'. Chapter 3 deals with prepositional relatives in colloquial English, focusing on non-canonical structures containing doubled or mismatching prepositions"-- Provided by publisher 04.0_pp_vi_vi_Copyright_page 05.0_pp_vii_viii_Dedication 06.0_pp_ix_x_Contents 07.0_pp_xi_xi_Acknowledgements 08.0_pp_1_6_Prologue 09.0_pp_7_53_Background 10.0_pp_54_131_Resumptive_Relatives 11.0_pp_132_190_Prepositional_Relatives 12.0_pp_191_242_Gapless_Relatives 13.0_pp_243_244_Epilogue 14.0_pp_245_271_Glossary_and_Abbreviations 15.0_pp_272_309_References 16.0_pp_310_314_Index