Headless Relative Clauses in Matlatzinca

In this chapter, a rich array of headless relative clauses in Matlatzinca (Atzincan, Oto-Pamean, Oto-Manguean; Mexico) is presented, mainly based on the patterns found in a corpus of natural data from spontaneous narratives and conversations by fluent native speakers. While free relative clauses are attested in the language, by far the most common type of headless relative clause is an asyndetic clause, i.e., a clause with no complementizer or relative pronoun. Maximal and existential free relative clauses are only found with the wh- words for ‘who,’ ‘what,’ and ‘where,’ but free-choice free relative clauses apparently also allow for the wh-word for ‘how much.’