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Re: Relative clauses

From:Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 28, 2006, 15:58
--- caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...>
wrote:

> I should > have written, "I do not want Senjecas to have > relative pronouns, > relative adjectives, etc." > > "Have you seen which book he is reading?" > > I believe that in that sentence "which" is a > relative adjective. > > Charlie >
One simple-minded way for a language to avoid such constructions is to recognize that two distinct events have taken place and to give each event its own sentence: "I saw the book that John gave you." becomes: "John gave you a book." "(Then) I saw same book." In the sentence "Have you seen which book he is reading?" there are three events described, (reading, seeing, inquiring) one of which is hypothetical: "He is reading a book." (factual) "You (might) have seen same book." (hypothetical) "I inguire about truth of second statement." (factual) The third statement might be replaced with a particle that indicates a request for validation of the statement to which it is attached: "He reads book." "You have seen same book, eh?" I can't imagine any relative clause situation which could not be decomposed into a number of seperate sentences, each describing one of the events described by the more complex construction. --gary