ENGLISH CONTACT CLAUSES REVISITED: A DIACHRONIC APPROACH

Abstract

0.1 The existing literature in the field cf contact clauses, i.e. relative clauses without a relative proncun in the stuface structure, is both impressive and comprehensive: it ranges from early sttidies in the last quarter of the 19th Century (see Mustanoja's Tbiblicgraphy, 206 208) to very recent contributions by Erdmann and Nagucka, both in FLH, 1980, and Van der Auwera (FLH, 1984). There are a number of reasons for which I venture to submit yet another paper on this vexed subject-matter. First, the available data have been recently extended considerably: Bourcier (1977) and Bastiaensens (1983) for OE, Chevillet (1981) for ME, and my own data for EME and EMODE. Secondly, the new perspectives opened by Keenan and Comrie's Accessibility Hierarchy, hence AH, and its application to the history of the English relative «lause, e.g. in Romaine, 1980 and 1981 and Dekeyser, 1984. Thirdly, recent cross-linguistic analyses of the relative clause, particularly Der Relativsatz in den indoeuropäischen Sprachen (1981) by Helena Kurzova. All this prompted me to look at the history of contact clauses afresh, and to try and come up with some innovating views on this matter.