Les propositions relatives: restrictivité, non restrictivité et maximalisation

This paper aims to analyze the semantics of relative clauses (RCs) in Latin. In this language there are neither graphic, nor suprasegmental or morphosyntactic marks to distinguish between restrictive and non-restrictive RCs. Nevertheless, this opposition can be supposed for Latin external-headed RCs, on the basis of the information structure, the degree of the head noun identification, and the co-occurrence with the head noun of the cataphoric pronoun is ea id, which implies restrictiveness. On the other hand, both internal-headed RCs, i.e. correlative and circumnominal RCs, and free RCs have a maximilizing semantics. In maximalizing RCs the whole semantic content of the relative construction lies within the RC. This means that the RC-external material is reduced to a minimum and that its semantic contribution should be traced back to an RC-internal interpretation or to an interpretation which is predictable from the RC. The maximalizing semantics of internal-headed and free RCs in Latin is shown by tests such as the compatibility with universal quantifiers, the impossibility of stacking and the equivalence between qui quae quod (‘who/which/that’) relative pronoun, on the one hand, and quicumque quaecumque quodcumque or quisquis quicquid (‘whoever/whatever’’), on the other hand.