Relevance of Grammar and Pragmatics to the Relevancy Condition

Abstract

This article claims that what is referred to as the Relevancy Condition on Korean Internally Headed Relative Clauses (IHRC) (Kuroda 1976-77, Y-B Kim 2002) consists of both grammatical and pragmatic sub-conditions, which respectively make the embedded clause related to the embedding clause via a grammatical mediator and bear a circumstantial, a causal, or a concessive relation to it. I show, however, that while the grammatical condition has to be met by every IHRC, the pragmatic condition need not be, contra the prevailing assumption. Based on this observation, I classify IHRCs into two types: the entity-central type and the event-central type. In addition, I take up the fundamental question yet to be answered, namely why such a condition holds for the IHRC construction to begin with.