# Languages w/out dependent clauses Tags: linguistic-universals, universal-grammar, complex-sentences - Score: 2 - Views: 572 - Answers: 2 - Answered: yes - Asked by: jaam (513 rep) - Asked: 2019-05-30 - Edited: 2019-05-30 - Site: linguistics ## Question Is there a language w/out dependent clauses, i.e. one in which you couldn't say e.g. "I know that x is here" w/ a clause, where the main clause is in italic and dependent in bold (and that overlaps, because you may analyze it as belonging to this or that). I suppose the lack of dependent clauses might be possible if a language would exclusively use a different constituent (i.e. not a sentence or clause) to convey the same meaning. Or maybe you lack so complex syntax in some pidgins (which would be unlikely to generalize to full-blown natural languages) NOTE: The original question was about "relative clauses", which seems to be a proper subset of dependent clauses that I intended it to be about ## Answers ### Answer by jaam (score: 2) It seems Pirahã may qualify (my stress): Since we do not find unambiguous relative clauses in the corpus, we cannot use them to conclude that Pirahã has recursive embedding. As Pirahã isn't

# Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã Current Anthropology. Published: 2005-08-01. 1,262 citations. ## Authors - Daniel L. Everett (Linguistics & English Language): h-index 27; 5,078 citations; corresponding author ## Topics - Categorization, perception, and language - Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation - Language and cultural evolution --- # Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Piraha Ãnother Look at the Design Features of Human Language The Piraha ˜language challenges simplistic application of Hockett's nearly universally accepted design features of human language by showing that some of these features (interchangeability, displacement, and productivity) may be culturally constrained. In particular, Piraha ˜culture constrains communication to nonabstract subjects which fall within the immediate experience of interlocutors. This constraint explains a number of very surprising features of Piraha ˜grammar and culture: the absence of numbers of any kind or a concept of counting and of any terms for quantification, the absence of color terms, the absence of embedding, the simplest pronoun inventory known, the absence of "relative tenses," t