Re: Subordination

On Thu, 25 Mar 1999, Carlos Thompson wrote:

> dunn patrick w wrote:
>
> > All right, another question (now I just know I'm getting annoying, but for
> > the first time in weeks I've got spare time).
> >
> > What are some of the ways you indicate subordinate clauses in your
> > languages?  I was thinking in my new language I'm working on -- telu'at'a
> > -- that I might have two methods of showing subordination.  In one, the
> > subordinate clauses would function as a word, viz:
> >
> > (definite article/possessive pronoun) + subject noun root + verb root +
> > object noun root + case + (distance)  So we'd have "The man who went to
> > the store gave me a horse" as "The.man.going.storeward.nom. gave me.dat
> > horse.acc".  This could also work with such things as "My hatred of her
> > causes conflict" "my.hate.her.nom cause conflict.acc" which isn't
> > technically subordinate but kills two birds with one stone.
> >
> > My other thought, was adding a verbal mood specifically for subordinate
> > clauses.  But that just sounds boring.
>
> Why sounds it boring?
> Is telu'at'a aglutinative... polysyntetic?
*shrugs*  I don't know.  Why is _rema_ "onion"?  ;)  Yes, telu'at'a is
aglunative.  With maybe a couple tints of inflecting.

> About my conlangs, neither Hangkerimce nor Chleweyish have subordination the
> way English (or all the IE languages I know) have, I guess.
I suppose it's not really a necessary feature, per se.  Perhaps I'll make
do with the somewhat clumsy method I outlined earlier.  I rather like it,
for some reason.

> Hangkerimce has a very fixed syntax, and subordination would be translated
> paraphrasing and refering to the previous sentence, then "The man who went to
> the store gave me a horse" would be say like "man has gone to store" "he has
> given me a horse".
> PE_VE^YEM~LAN_YA_(store_sing) PE_VU/LA_(give)YA_(horse_sing), where PE_LA_YA_
> means perfect action, VE^YEM~ is a/the man, and VU/ referes to VE^YEM~.
You have a write up of this on the web?

--Patrick