Re: Subordinate clauses

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful feedback.

Sally Caves wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "David Barrow" <davidab@...>
>
>
>
>>Given that the best place for a relative clause is next to the
>>noun/pronoun it
>>qualifies, my first interpretation of the above would be that you saw
>>the man.
>>
>>
>Yes, that was my original understanding of the sentence.
>
>
I agree that that's the most natural reading in English. I chose to
focus on the dog because my language/proto-language is supposed to have
very free word order, communicating meaning by way of case/number/tense
agreement.

>By "ambiguous," do you mean that you and the man might have seen the dog
>together?  I would have written "the dog that I and the man saw was green."
>
>
I think it's just ambiguous given free word order. Unless you specify
some positional relationship between the relative clause and its
antecedent, the pronoun could refer to anything. I now see that if the
pronoun is in the same case as the antecedent, as in my initial
solution, ambiguity could occur when two potential antecedents are in
the same case: "(the) dog (in the) street (in the) town, (I) visited
(in) it, was green." (nom loc loc, 1st-past loc, 3rd-past nom.)

>What did I have for Teonaht?  Li zef kelry hain, vyrm lo kohs, as a way to
>remove one of the embedded relatives:  "the man saw I whom, green his dog."
>It's a lot more difficult for the second sentence:  Li kohs kelry hain pomil
>zef, vyrm elo.  "the dog saw I whom with the man, green past-he."  Both show
>the different focuses by putting kelry hain after the noun in question.
>
>
This sounds similar to the initial solution in my language, except
you've eliminated ambiguity by requiring that the relative clause
immediately follow its antecedent. Or am I misreading it? I'm thinking I
could either make this requirement,

    "(the) dog, (I) saw it, (with the) man was green." (nom, 1st-past
acc, dat 3rd-past nom.)

or simply repeat the antecedent like

    "(the) dog (with the) man, (I) saw (the) dog, was green." (nom dat,
1st-past acc, 3rd-past nom.)

The second is very primitive sounding, but it appears to allow
practically any order and I don't see how it could be ambiguous.

>Roger Mills wrote:
>
>Not so sure about that.  _den_ is in the accusative simply because it is the
>object of gesehen habe, not because it refers to the dog.  I find this
>sentence just as ambiguous as the Engl. equivalent.  German speakers, what's
>your opinion???
>
>
I'm still a little confused about German relative clauses, but I think
that clarifies them a bit. My German professor didn't present it that
simply. I'm planning on reading up on Anglo-Saxon, which I suspect that,
as a native English speaker, I should do. I could be wrong, but I expect
it to clarify my understanding of English, and hence language in
general, tremendously.

Thanks again for all the help.

Sincerely,
Aaron Grahn

ROMANI
 ITE
DOMUM