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    Agreement
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    Personal pronouns which function as antecedent to relative clauses, determine person and number agreement with the verb inside the relative clause. However, the second person pronoun only optionally causes complementiser agreement to be present on the relative pronoun, although complementiser agreement for the 2SG is otherwise always obligatory. This could be due to interference from Dutch.

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    Personal pronouns are rarely used as antecedents of relative clauses. If the relative pronoun functions as the subject of the relative clause, it usually triggers an agreement on the verb which corresponds to the person and number features of its pronominal antecedent. The example below features a first person antecedent. Perhaps it is a coincidence, but the Frisian Language Corpus features many relative clauses with a pronominal antecedent which have a tensed verb that has a form that is homophonous with the first and the third person. However, the example below features a tensed verb in the first person that is different from the third person:

    1
    Ik dy't dyn stal bereizgje oant yn de fierste úthoeken
    I who your form travel.1SG on to the farthest corners
    I who travel through your form and its most remote corners

    The example below shows that a third person verb is less acceptable:

    2
    ?*Ik dy't dyn stal bereizget oant yn de fierste úthoeken
    I who your form travel.3SG on to the farthest corners
    I who travel through your form and its most remote corners

    The example in (3) features a second person antecedent. The relative pronoun shows complementiser agreement in the second person singular (as do subordinating complementisers and question words).

    3
    O minske, do dyst de lju dy't soks dogge feroardielest
    o man you who.2SG the people who such.a.thing do condemn.2SG
    O man, you who condemn the people who do such a thing

    However, the pattern above is not so frequent. There are more instances of second person singular antecedents followed by a complementiser without agreement, although the tensed verb again is second person singular:

    4
    Do dy't mem helpe wolste
    you who.COMP mother help want.2SG
    You who want to help mother
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      About this article
      Author(s): Eric Hoekstra
      Category: Frisian Syntax
      Keywords: personal pronounagreement
      Version: 1.0, December 2015
      Version history:
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      1.0 Eric Hoekstra December 2015
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