Relativization

Relativization is the process of making a statement, a relation, or a truth condition depend on a restricted domain, context, or perspective. The term occurs in linguistics, logic, and philosophy, among other fields.

In linguistics, relativization refers to the formation of relative clauses, clauses that modify a noun by relating it to another element in the clause. In English, a relative clause is introduced by a relative pronoun such as who, which, or that. Relative clauses can be subject or object, and languages differ in how they assemble them; some use prenominal relative clauses, others postnominal; movement and deletion of elements interact with pronouns and scope. A related area concerns binding and ellipsis in the analysis of permissible extraction and the position of gaps.

In logic and formal semantics, relativization is the restriction of the domain of quantification or evaluation to a subset of the overall universe. For example, a formula φ(x) may be interpreted with x ranging only over a specified set, or a theory may be relativized to a substructure. Relativization clarifies the scope of statements and is used in model theory, database query semantics, and the study of context-dependent truth.

In philosophy and social sciences, relativization captures context dependence, perspective, or normative frameworks. Judgments or statements may be described as relativized to cultural, historical, or theoretical contexts.

Overall, relativization is a general methodological idea that helps account for how content can depend on restricted domains, whether in language, formal logic, or discourse.