Re: Subordinate clauses

Emaelivpeith Pete Bleackley:
>Tacitus, who, being obsessed with subclauses, regularly wrote sentences of
>such extraordinary length and complexity that they would have been better
>organised as at least two paragraphs, is, I believe, therefore one of the
>most painful of all Latin authors to translate.
I would have translated the paragraph properly, but for two things:  1) my
lexicon is missing quite a number of these words, and it's late and I don't
feel like discovering new words, and 2) a more general outline would
probably be more helpful (and readable!) to you anyway.

So below is how the sentence breaks down in Asha'ille.  Following HTML,
<CLAUSE> denotes a beginning of a specific type of clause, and </CLAUSE>
ends that clause.  In Asha'ille, actual words open the clauses, rather than
pauses (or commas) as in English.  The opening clause word is always
required, but under certain conditions the closing word may be omitted.

Also, Asha'ille doesn't have a "to be" verb.  If in English you have a
sentence that basically means "A = B" ("A is B"), then Asha'ille's version
of the copula is the construction "jhor'A t'B" (literally "equal A and B").


Believe I
<ABOUT>
  Tacitus
    <PREVIOUS WORD>
      subclause(ADJ) obsessed
    </PREVIOUS WORD>
    <SAME WORD>
      often wrote (OBJ) sentences
        <PREVIOUS WORD>
          extraordinary length and complexity
            <SUCH THAT>
              they
              = (would have been), (by being)
              better organized, (at least)two paragraphs
            </SUCH THAT>
        </PREVIOUS WORD>
    </SAME WORD>
  =
  therefore painful(one of the most) author latin(ADJ)
    <USE>
      for translate(N)
    </USE>
</ABOUT>


So it looks like Asha'ille favors more subclauses than English, trading
that for the shortness of each individual clause and explicit marking of
the clause's function.  If you have questions or need clarification of
something, please ask!  :)


--
AA