Headlessrelativeclauseshavereceivedlittleattentioninthelinguisticliterature,despitethemanymorpho-syntacticandsemanticpuzzlestheyraise.TheseclauseshavebeenevenmoreneglectedinthestudyofMesoamericanlanguages.HeadlessRelativeClausesinMesoamericanLanguagesconstitutesthefirstin-depth,systematicstudyofthetopic.Spanningfifteenlanguagesfromfivelanguagefamilies,itisthebroadestcrosslinguisticstudyofheadlessrelativeclausesyetconducted.Formostoftheselanguagesthereisnopreviousdescriptiveordocumentarymaterialonwh-constructionsingeneral,letaloneheadlessrelativeclauses.Manyofthelanguagesarethreatenedorendangered;allareunderstudied.Eachchapterinthisvolumeconstitutesanoriginalcontributiontotypologicalandtheoreticallinguistics.Thefirstchapterprovidesacomprehensiveintroductiontothevarietiesofheadlessrelativeclausesandtheirimportancetothestudyofhumanlanguage,whiletheotherchaptersarelanguage-specificandfollowauniformformattofacilitatecomparisonsandgeneralizationsacrosslanguages.Throughthecollectiveworkofateamoftwenty-onescholars,HeadlessRelativeClausesinMesoamericanLanguagespresentsaclearandsystematicintroductiontorelativeandinterrogativeclausesinMesoamericanlanguages.
