In this paper, we examine a specific type of Relative Clause (RC). We look at the construction consisting of a ‘light noun’, that is, a noun with highly non-specific lexical content which does not do referential work, plus a relative clause. It has generally been assumed that the functional contribution of RCs is to narrow the set of referents of the head noun to only those for which the predicate of the RC holds true. However, the ‘Light Head RC construction’ (LHRC) has various interactional affordances that mostly revolve around characterizing referents with discourse-relevant properties rather than establishing reference. We argue that these various functions of LHRCs revolve around participants’ orientations to categoryhood. Data are in English and Dutch.

中文翻译：

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“非常美国化的东西”：Light-Head 关系从句的交互作用

在本文中，我们研究了一种特定类型的关系从句 (RC)。我们看由“轻名词”组成的结构，即具有高度非特定词汇内容的名词，不做指称工作，加上一个关系从句。通常假设 RC 的功能贡献是将中心名词的指称集缩小到仅那些 RC 的谓词成立的对象。然而，“Light Head RC 结构”(LHRC) 具有各种交互可供性，主要围绕着表征具有话语相关属性的所指对象，而不是建立参考。我们认为，LHRC 的这些不同功能都围绕着参与者对类别的定位。数据为英语和荷兰语。