Editing Relative clause (section)

====Relative pronoun type====
This is a type of gapped relative clause, but is distinguished by the fact that the role of the shared noun in the embedded clause is indicated indirectly by the case marking of the marker (the [[relative pronoun]]) used to join the main and embedded clauses. All languages which use relative pronouns have them in clause-initial position: though one could conceivably imagine a clause-final relative pronoun analogous to an adverbial subordinator in that position, they are unknown.

Some languages have what are described as "relative pronouns" (in that they agree with some properties of the head noun, such as number and gender) but which do not actually indicate the case role of the shared noun in the embedded clause. [[Classical Arabic]] has "relative pronouns" which are case-marked, but which agree in case with the ''head'' noun. Case-marked relative pronouns in the strict sense are almost entirely confined to [[Standard Average European|European languages]]{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}}, where they are widespread except among the [[Celtic languages|Celtic family]] and [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan family]]. The influence of Spanish has led to their adaption by a very small number of [[indigenous languages of the Americas|Native American languages]], of which the best known are the [[Keresan languages]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_aco|title=WALS Online - Language Acoma|website=wals.info|access-date=8 April 2018}}</ref>