Relative Clauses - grambank/grambank GitHub Wiki
Suppose we have a clause with an overt nominal (which is not a pronoun). For example, we might have a clause such as the woman is tall where we have an overt nominal the woman. We will refer to this nominal as the head (the woman) and this clause (the woman is tall) as the main clause. A dependent clause is a relative clause if it modifies the head. For example, a dependent clause that can modify the woman is who has a green hat.
The questions on relative clauses mainly concern the placement of the relative clause with respect to the head nominal. Before spelling out the ordering options, let us first note that the head noun has two places to fill, one in the main clause and one in the relative clause. Some languages simply let the head nominal act in both clauses as a nexus, while some languages require an overt anaphoric pronoun 'copy' of the head nominal, either in the main clause or in the dependent clause.
A: Suppose now that a language requires no overt pronoun copy in the main clause (i.e. no pronoun copy is required at all, or one is required in the relative clause), the following may happen:
The entire relative clause comes (immediately) after the head nominal as in the woman who has a green hat is tall.
The entire relative clause comes (immediately) before the head nominal as in who has a green hat the woman is tall.
The head nominal occurs inside the relative clause as in A green hat the woman has is tall.
The last option is that the relative clause is not adjacent to the head nominal as in the woman is tall who has a green hat, then it is non-adjacent.
B: Suppose now that a language requires a overt 'copy' pronoun in the main clause:
For example the pattern The woman who has a green hat she is tall counts (only) as correlative (GB330), no matter where in the relative clause the erstwhile (now replaced by an anaphoric pronoun) head nominal occurs.
References relevant to each specific feature are given in the feature articles.