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Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 41:4 (2017) ► pp.872–913

Subject preference in Ixcatec relative clauses (Otomanguean, Mexico)

ORCID logo | French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Oral Tradition Languages and Civilizations laboratory (LACITO)
Subject preference in relative clauses (RCs) has been reported in typologically diverse languages, but overall one notes that the number of languages analyzed experimentally remains extremely low. This paper presents experimental and natural evidence from Ixcatec, a critically-endangered Otomanguean language. Ixcatec is relevant to the discussion on universal subject preference for having syntactically and morphologically ambiguous subject and object RCs that can offer an unconfounded result. Study 1, a picture-matching comprehension experiment, shows that 63% of the ambiguous RCs are interpreted as subject RCs. Results from reaction times show that subject RC interpretations are numerically faster than object RC interpretations, but this difference does not reach significance. Analysis of a three-hour, free-speech corpus in Study 2 indicates that transitive subject RCs are only slightly more frequent than object RCs. In conclusion, although the Ixcatec data support universal subject preference, they also show how this preference is weaker than predicted.
Keywords: relative clauses, subject preference, Otomanguean
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Relative clauses
    • 2.2Relative subject preference
    • 2.3Ambiguous relative clauses
  • 3.Background on Ixcatec
    • 3.1Sociolinguistic overview
    • 3.2Overview of relevant features in Ixcatec
  • 4.Relative clauses in Ixcatec
    • 4.1The gap strategy and the Accessibility Hierarchy
    • 4.2Ambiguous relative clauses in Ixcatec
      • 4.2.1Materials
      • 4.2.2Participants
      • 4.2.3Procedure
      • 4.2.4Coding
      • 4.2.5Results
        • 1.Ambiguous RCs
        • 2.Word order change in the ORCs
        • 3.Cross-reference morphemes in the ORCs
        • 4.Cross-reference morphemes in SRCs as resumptive pronouns
      • 4.2.6Discussion
  • 5.Study 1: Comprehension experiment on subject and object relative clauses
    • 5.1Goals and predictions
    • 5.2Materials
    • 5.3Participants
    • 5.4Procedure
    • 5.5Coding and analysis
    • 5.6Results
    • 5.7Discussion
  • 6.Study 2: Ambiguity resolution and relative-subject preference in the free-speech corpus
    • 6.1Goals and predictions
    • 6.2Corpus
    • 6.3Participants
    • 6.4Corpus annotation
    • 6.5Results
    • 6.6Discussion
  • 7.General discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 30 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.16055.ada
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