The Restrictions on the Genitive Relative Clauses Triggered by Relational Nouns

摘要

Genitives can be relativized in Mandarin Chinese. This article focuses on the genitive relative clauses triggered by relational nouns. The constructions are restricted to some conditions grammatically and semantically. First, the relational nouns in the relative clauses must serve as subjects. And the predicates of the relative clauses are usually intransitive verbs. In addition, the kinship terms cannot construct the qualified genitive relative clauses. Finally, the research explains these restrictions in terms of the theory of prominence condition.