Raising and head-external relatives in Atchan

Abstract This paper argues that Atchan (Kwa; Côte d’Ivoire) exhibits raising and head-external relatives. I argue that the two relative clause derivations in Atchan must be separate and do not reflect the cross-linguistically common raising/matching ambiguity: in particular, the non-raising derivation is a head-external one, and Atchan lacks matching-derived relatives. Evidence for two structures comes from negative concord licensing and extraposition, while evidence for the head-external derivation comes from idiom interpretation and word-order possibilities given the complex relative-clause periphery of Atchan. The latter piece of evidence relies on a pattern of relative-clause subject displacement in Atchan, which is shown to force a raising derivation. These phenomena in Atchan serve as evidence for the relevance of the head-external derivation cross-linguistically and, in particular, show that hybrid or other matching-based accounts of relative-clause connectivity cannot be applied universally.