Re: Relative clauses

On 6/27/06, Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...> wrote:
> You must also realize that not all languages *allow* you to
> relativize all roles.
Heh. An example I came up with is "Ah! That girl! Tom used to go out
with Mary and her". Try to relativise that in English :) *"That's the
girl that Tom used to go out with Mary and"? *"That's the girl with
whom and Mary Tom used to go out"?

> ikusi duen gizona
>
> = see.perf 3rd.abs-trans-3rd.erg-rel man-def
> = "he/she saw him/her"-rel the man
> = the man who saw him/her
> = the man who he/she saw
>
> The -en only marks the relative clause, not the role the head plays in it.
Similar in Klingon, FWIW; the canonical example (in the Klingon
Dictionary) is {yaS qIppu'bogh puq}, meaning "the officer whom the
child hit" or "the child who hit the officer". (It breaks down into
"officer [object, since it precedes the verb] hit.perf.rel child
[subject, since it follows the verb]".)

The language later gained the ability to disambiguate the head with
{-'e'}, previously only the topic marker (one of the very few changes
to the language made first by speakers and later canonised by the
creator, I'm told) -- so {yaS'e' qIppu'bogh puq} (officer.top
hit.perf.rel child) is "The officer whom the child hit" and {yaS
qIppu'bogh puq'e'} (officer hit.perf.rel child.top) is "The child who
hit the officer".

>  Such languages may not give the subordinate clause in "I know where you
> are going" the form of a relative clause,
And, like Basque, Klingon cannot (to the best of my knowledge) give "I
know where you are going" the form of a relative clause. (I think the
canonical example of such a not-directly-expressible sentence is "The
ship in which I fled". In general, only subjects and objects -- but
not complements(?) of prepositions -- can be relativised.)

> but may build such subordinate
> clauses in a similar way to questions or in some other way.
"Recast". One of the vital tools for someone attempting to speak Klingon :)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>