An HPSG Account of Relativization in Turkish Using Relational Constraints

In this paper we propose an HPSG account of the complex phenomenon of relativization in Turkish. Relative clauses in this language are prenominal and headed by a participle whose form depends on the existence of a genitive subject in the clause in the case of bounded dependencies and on two further factors, namely the grammatical function of the gap host and the gap, in the case of longdistance dependencies. Previous accounts have all been transformational. We present an account for this phenomenon in HPSG, making use of lexically specified mod values, valency lists and non-local feature handling. We outline a comprehensive analysis that exploits relational constraints on lexical entries. 1 Introduction Relative clauses in Turkish are prenominal and have verbal heads that are morphologically marked with one of a number of participle suffixes. There are two different strategies of relativization in Turkish, distinguished by the morphological marking on the verbal head of the clause (an..