Re: Subordinate clauses

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Knibb" <j_knibb@...>

> In T4, the phrase {man - see I} 'the man that I saw' can be put in the
> place of X in {dog with + X' green}, and the nesting is marked
prosodically.
> Similarly, {dog with + man} 'dog with man' can be put for X in {X - see I'
> green}, again subject to appropriate nesting.  The word order itself
> remains the same, but the relative nesting of the phrases changes.
>
> Sorry I can't summon up the energy to make this into a proper
> comparative translation exercise -- it would be an interesting one.
I know what you mean; this is an utterly fiendish little sentence.  I've
been following the various responses; loved the German examples, especially
the "Der Hund mit dem von mir gesehenen Mann war gruen."  In Teonaht you'd
probably say: "the man that I saw his dog was green."  Not too much nesting:
Li zef kelry hai, vyrm lo kohs.  "the man see-past I (rel.)him, green his
dog."  This strikes me as being a very common natlang solution.  As for
Aaron's original question, Teonaht dispenses with a subordination particle,
and merely juxtaposes main and subordinate or relative clauses through
reversal of word order: "the man saw I" means "the man that I saw."  The
trailing word "hai" (him/whom) is optional and more and more often left off
now.  Of course, this is an inaccurate translation: I've dispensed with the
double nesting: "the dog WITH THE MAN  THAT I SAW was green."  Let's see:
Vyrm li kohs ilid zef tsobal kerem: "green the dog of the man under-my
seeing."  No.  Horrible.  Interesting, but horrible.

Sally
scaves@frontiernet.net

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