Dialectal variation in English relativization

Relativization in English is today commonly analysed in terms of a dichotom y of a wh-strategy and a non-wh-strategy, said to be applied in different d ialects or levels of usage. The present paper approaches the question from a dialectological angle, concentrating on the non-wh-relativizers that, at, as and what, which are today mostly classed as conjunctions (complementize rs) but have in fact genitive forms which are used in some, but not all, va rieties of English. Examining the origin of these relatively recent forms i n the dialects where they are used, and testing the interpretation of the f orms by speakers of varieties where they are not used, the paper argues tha t the non-wh relatives are treated and interpreted as pronouns like who and which, rather than conjunctions (complementizers), in both types of dialec ts. In this way the would-be contrast between two different modes of relati vization is fundamentally an inflectional difference in the grammar of the different types of pronouns even though it is accompanied by some syntactic differences as well. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.