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Conlang Year, Day 207 prompt

Goal: Brainstorm ideas for relative clause components

Note: Decide whether you will have a relative pronoun or other relativizer.

Tip: Also consider where any relative clause markers might occur within the clause structure.

Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try


Continue your relative clause brainstorming by focusing on the internal structures of the relative clause, including options for relative pronouns (and where they might occur) and/or relativizers marking the boundary (or boundaries) of the clause structure. The following English examples demonstrate some of the basic options for the structure of relative clauses:

  • with a relative pronoun: I found the person {who grows flowers}.
  • a gapped structure: I found the person {grows flowers}.
  • a relativizer marking at least one boundary of the clause: I found the person {that the person grows flowers}.
  • double-headed clause structure: I found the person {the person grows flowers}.
  • internally headed relative clause: I found {the person grows flowers}.
  • adjoined clauses: I found the person {they grow flowers}.

Generate ideas for the internal structures of relative clauses in your language, and find languages with similar strategies to get ideas for what you might do to create the structures.