Introducing Headless Relative Clauses and the Findings from Mesoamerican Languages

This introductory chapter pursues several goals. First, it introduces the characters at the center of the volume: both the main characters, i.e., varieties of headless relative clauses, and the equally important supporting characters, i.e., headed relative clauses and wh- interrogative clauses. The next chapters can, therefore, assume that the reader is already familiar with these core constructions and just focus on their manifestations in the specific languages under investigation. Second, this chapter presents the definitions, methodologies, and tests that the authors have adopted, so that each subsequent, language-specific chapter can make use of them without further introduction or justification. In doing so, this chapter also fulfills a third goal: to provide a concise guide to scholars who are interested in pursuing further investigation of headless relative clauses in Mesoamerican and other languages. Fourth, the current chapter aims to highlight commonalities and differences in the findings from the other chapters and discusses how those findings contribute to the current understanding of headless relative clauses typologically and theoretically and of human language in general.