Relative Clauses as Grammatical Nominalizations: Evidence from Akan

The structures that have been referred to as relative clauses in Akan (Niger Congo, Kwa) are re-examined in light of Shibatani (2009, 2019), which shows these structures formally to be nominalizations. It is shown that Akan “relative clauses” are nominalizations in modification use. “Headless relative clauses” are shown to be argument uses of nominalizations. Evidence adduced includes the occurrence of relative structures with determiners, internal syntactic changes such as the inability to take full NPs in relevant argument positions, and external syntactic properties of occurrence as subjects and objects in clauses. Forms traditionally classed as relativizers are shown to be nominalizers or nominalization markers. The polysemous nature of these markers is seen in their occurrence with “headless genitives”, which are also shown to be nominalizations. The paper highlights the value of separating form from function in syntactic analyses.