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Noun Phrase Accessibility Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Bernard Comrie  and
Edward L. Keenan
Bernard Comrie
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Edward L. Keenan
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

In the light of recent research on Noun Phrase Accessibility (NPA) and relative clause formation (cf. Keenan & Comrie 1977), the main principles of NPA are here clarified and modified. The proposals of Maxwell 1979 for revising the criteria which distinguish relative clause formation strategies, and for stating further generalizations in terms of the strategies thus defined, are considered in detail. It is concluded that Maxwell advances the understanding of NPA by providing further significant generalizations, but that his criteria sometimes lack explicitness, and do not affect the validity of the criteria originally established for distinguishing strategies in the statement of NPA.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 649 - 664
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 Linguistic Society of America

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