Deconstructing Relativization — the case of Georgian `rom’ relatives

(joint work with Léa Nash, Paris 8/CNRS)

The typological literature on relativization talks about correlatives, externally headed relatives and internally headed relatives as distinct relativization strategies. We discuss the case of Georgian, a language which we argue has all three, and show how it builds these up from essentially the same ingredients. We add to the typology of correlative constructions showing that Georgian correlatives consist of a left peripheral internally headed relative clause as opposed to better studied correlative constructions which involve a free relative construction. One question we ask is what the difference between free relatives and internally headed relatives is. We note that Georgian internally headed relatives contrast with free relatives in Hindi-Urdu and English in not having structural definiteness. This difference, we show, has an impact on the kinds of correlatives found in the two languages.