Re: Subordinate clauses

< Standard Modern Japanese makes no distinction between verbs in
 independent clauses and subordinate clauses, and has nothing other than
 word order to mark subordinate clauses.  Thus, "I saw the man who owned
 the green dog" (I'm not sure how to say "the man with the dog") would
 be:

 (I) Green dog owned man saw
  >>

Rihana-ye is supposed to use subordinate clauses in a way similar to Japanese
and Korean,  but I think that what would be wanted here (if the focus is on
the man) would be "owning" rather than "owned, " so if I wanted to say "I saw
the man (who) owned the green dog," it would be "I green dog was owning man
saw"--in Rihana-ye "Seba gali fabofa wifebo-mi wicho."  Since the original
sample
sentence said simply the green dog was with the man, this would mean using a
postposition for with instead of the participle verb-for owning, so "The dog
(that was with the man I saw )was green." would be "By me seen man-with dog
green"in Rihana-ye : "Seba-je wicho-si ba-fe fabofa gali." However, I must
admit
that I am often careless about constructing "correct" idiomatic clauses like
this--I tend to fall back on a more English influenced word order such as
"The
dog with the man I saw was green" " Fabofa ba-fe seba wicho gali." But I do
not consider this "good" Rihana-ye grammar.
  John Leland