Re: Relative clauses

Hi,

From: "caeruleancentaur" <caeruleancentaur@...>
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:47 AM

> "Have you seen which book he is reading?"
> I believe that in that sentence "which" is a relative
> adjective.
IME we called that a 'question pronoun'. 'Which' refers not
to a quality of the head word, so it cannot be an adjective
according to the definition I learned at school.

As for relative sentences, Ayeri is -- as usual -- quite
boring in fact since it behaves quite similar to English
and/or German ... Some things sound more awkward than
others, though, although they do not sound necessarily
awkward in English. I'm trying to translate now sentences
that Philip Newton has said were difficult to translate into
Klingon. Maybe that will reveal some problems regarding
aesthetics I have:

"I know where you are going"
1a. Le koronayang yanōn sileyea saravāng. (awkward?)
    = I-know place to which you-go
1b. Koronayang siea saravāng. (Not perfect, but probably OK)
    = I-know where you-go
1c. ??

"The ship in which I fled"
2a. Besonreng kong sirengea madanguayang (awkward?)
    = ship inside_of which I-fled
2b. Adabesonreng, madanguayang kong arạea. (OK)
    = that-ship, I-fled inside-of it

No, I don't really like either double case marking on
relative pronouns (1a, 2a) nor using things like _kong
sirengea_ (= inside_of REL.AGT.LOC) for some reason. 1b also
seems not pleasing to me since you mark a relative pronoun
that has no head for locative. Note the difference between
_sea_ (also written _sya_) and _siea_ (also written
_siya_) -- the first implies that the relative pronoun
refers to an earlier locative object, while the second just
marks the relative pronoun for locative, where the relative
pronoun refers back to the NP that came last*, but in the
case of 1b there is only a VP -- if you count _-ayang_
(1s.AGT) into the VP, although it is just an attached NP
more or less, but closely related to the VP _koron_ (know).

Seems to be a dilemma, for me at least -- I guess I should
canonify double marked relative pronouns and dummy relative
pronouns, althóugh I don't like them.

Thanks for still reading my ramblings,
Carsten

*) Although I haven't known it by then, this works like
PERL's '$_' variable now that I think about it.

--
"Miranayam kepauarạ naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Venena, Rayam 9, 2315 ya 17:58:06 pd

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