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Re: Subordination

From:FFlores <fflores@...>
Date:Thursday, March 25, 1999, 18:24
dunn patrick w <tb0pwd1@...> 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).
_Carpe diem_, then :-)
> > What are some of the ways you indicate subordinate clauses in your > languages?
Here's two of them: 1. In Drasele'q, you leave everything in place but you change the pronoun (or state it) to show it is "relative". For example: _Nailel renn._ "I see (the) man" _Nailel porrn._ "I see him" But _Nailel renn imaldu"aq pod oklon._ "I see (the) man (who) ate (the) cherry." _Nailel porrn imaldu"aq pod oklon._ "I see him (who) ate (the) cherry." _pod_ is the relative form of _porr_ "he". It stays right where it's supposed to be, after the verb _imaldu"aq_ "(3s) ate". If the pronoun is in the same case in the main and the subordinate clause, then you may omit it: _Nailel (porrn) thrumu"eq bu"rth pond._ "I see (him) (whom) they killed" Here _pond_ is the accusative (object) form of _pod_. 2. In Ciravesu, you do just as in Japanese: you place the subordinate clause before the modified NP, without any other marks, just as if it were an adjective. (This doesn't lead to ambiguities because the lang is stricly SOV.) _Mecotas fan ialcayce somerema ichualcani._ "He saw something he had never seen before." lit. [Mecotas fan ialcayce ] somerema ichualcani. never before he-hadn't_seen something.ACC he-it.ACC-saw (the subordinate clause "he had never seen before" modifies "something". Not a conlang, but also: Quechua uses participles instead of subordinate clauses: "The man who plowed my field" comes like "The-my-field-plowing man". Just an extension to the subordinate = adjective usage.
> 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.
It certainly does, and wonderfully. But how are you going to handle those long compound words? I don't know much about this, but maybe someone in the list is familiar with polisynthetic Native American languages...
> > My other thought, was adding a verbal mood specifically for subordinate > clauses. But that just sounds boring.
Why? Though I wouldn't call it a verbal mood. I'm sure some natlangs use a similar approach. I guess subordinate clauses are one of those fields where you can invent a lot of things in a conlang -- more or less like in pronouns. --Pablo Flores * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labour: People are always available for work in the past tense.