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Re: Subordination

From:Irina Rempt <ira@...>
Date:Saturday, March 27, 1999, 14:22
On Wed, 24 Mar 1999, dunn patrick w wrote:

> What are some of the ways you indicate subordinate clauses in your > languages?
Valdyan is strongly SOV, and tends to have the whole subordinate clause as the object of the main clause. This is not a cast-iron rule, and it breaks down almost immediately where the object clause is longer than a few words or when there is more than one subordinate clause. Examples from the story on my web page: tate somoch rhinan rumesa rastynat great-grandfather sailor to work-inc thinks "it occurs to great-grandfather to get work as a sailor" _Rhinan rumesa_ is the object of _rastynat_. brach beret lea chylat dragon sit-on-eggs-irr it looks like "it looks like the dragon is sitting on eggs", "the dragon seems to be sitting on eggs". Here _brach_ is the subject of _beret_, and _brach beret_ is the grammatical object of the impersonal construction _lea chylat_ (i.e. _brach_ is not its subject!). The irrealis is caused by the indeterminacy of _lea chylat_. [Athal] brach bersein le nadenit lhenat Athal dragon nest-abl REFL will take away waits "Athal waits for the dragon to leave the nest" ("to take itself away from the nest". _Brach bersein le nadenit_ is the object of _Athal lhenat_. Athal le tisa le radat Athal REFL serve REFL swear "Athal makes up his mind to do the right thing"; _le tisa le rada_ is in fact a set expression. Athal arlie nusenat dolaynat Athal really has-come-back shouts "Athal shouts that he's really come back" This could also be _arlie nusenan dolaynat_, literally stating what he said: "I've really come back". arne fel laynynat tray airein dodolys himself though says friendship power-abl better "though he himself says that friendship is better than power" This example doesn't have the verb at the end; _tray airein dodolys laynynat_ would perhaps have been more correct, but _tray ayrein dodolys_ is almost a proverb, and it's pushed to a more emphatic position. I realize that I also need to take another look at the "great freedom for all the children" translation exercise - it looks like I completely neglected the position of the object clauses! Irina Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastinay. irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself) http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/frontpage.html (English) http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)