Structural Differences between Chinese and Japanese Relative Clauses and an L2 Acquisition Study

Despite the superficial similarity between Chinese and Japanese relative clauses, previous studies put forward different analyses for their head derivation: The head is raised from within the modifying clause in Chinese but is base-generated external to the modifying clause or raised in Japanese. This chapter first reviews relevant evidence for these analyses and argues that the head of Japanese relative clauses should be base-generated rather than raised. Having established that the head of relative clauses is derived differently in Chinese and Japanese, I present an L2 acquisition study, which explored whether L1 Chinese L2 Japanese learners can acquire the underlying syntactic knowledge that the head of Japanese RCs is base-generated.