I'm sorry it has taken a while replying to this mail. I had
to do some serious thinking. You ask some excellent questions,
Marcus.
Marcus wrote:
> > Let's say we have the phrase "The brown dog runs". "Be brown"
> > is an inherent state and its argument is marked as PAT. "Run"
> > OTOH is a controlled event and its argument is thus marked as
> > AGT. Now, the syntax of Rinya doesn't allow the subject argument
> > of a relative clause to be different from the one in the main
> > clause.
> Do you mean the subject arguments have to be the same in AGT/PAT
> or that they have to refer to the same entity?
After a lot of thought, I've decided that they have to refer to the
same entity.
> Does this hold for sentences where the subjects of the two clauses
> are not co-referential, like "The dog that John saw ran."?
I think Rinya will use passives like this:
(1) *areamie thelin ly Jynin qhentie.
run:PST dog:AGT REL:PAT:DIFF John:AGT hit:PST
'The dog that John hit ran.'
This above sentence is impossible. It just doesn't make any sense
at all. Instead one will have to use the passive to rearrange the
arguments like this:
(2) areamie thelin ly qhentau Jonumbe.
run:PST dog:AGT REL:PAT:DIFF hit:PASS John:INSTR
'The dog that was hit by John ran.'
That is, the relative clause "that John hit" must become "that
was hit by John".
OK. But how about a sentence with an indirect object being
relativized?
"The book that John gave to me was red." is ungrammatical
in Rinya. This must become:
(3) riw le mestau imenya Jonumbe le timie.
book:PAT REL:PAT:SAME give:PASS 1SG:DAT John:INSTR 3SG red:PST
'The book that was given to me by John was red.'
The parts of the relative clause can be rearranged for reasons
of focus and such.
So far everything seems to work out fine. It's when it comes to
the genitive that problems arise.
Consider the sentence "The book whose writer was eloquent was red".
"The book's writer" is rendered in Rinya (The genitive is marked
by the dative):
eriwil riwenya
writer:PAT book:DAT
'A writer of a book' Lit. 'A writer is to the book.'
(4) *riw lenya eriwil edrinie le timea
book:PAT REL:DAT writer:PAT eloquent:PST 3SG red:PRES
'The book whose writer is eloquent is red.'
The problem is that the relative pronoun _lenya_ refers to the
book, but it is _eriwil_ 'the writer' which is marked as PAT.
Somehow this seems wrong. I thought maybe this then would always
be ungrammatical in Rinya and one had to paraphrase this somehow.
Examples:
(5) "The book who had an eloquent writer was red."
(6) "The book which was red had an eloquent writer."
The problem here is that there is no word "to have" in Rinya.
"I have a book" = "A book is to me" = _riw imenya_ 'book 1SG:DAT'
The dative is used for have-phrases as well. Example (5) would
then look like:
(7) riw le eriwilenya edrinie le timie.
book:PAT REL:PAT:SAME writer:DAT eloquent:PST 3SG red:PST
'The book who had an eloquent writer was red.'
Compare this to (4). Either you get _lenya eriwil_ or you get
_le eriwilenya_. This leads to confusion. I'm not sure if
either of these sentences will be understood. Try looking at
the morpheme-by-morpheme translation gloss only and I think
you'll see what I mean.
What should I do?
> I'm not sure what DIFFERENT and SAME means exactly. They seem to
> mark the fact that the subjects have different/same volitionality.
> Is that right?
Yes, exactly. Or rather control/non-control, but what the hey.
> > However. There is another problem. The word order of Rinya is
> > PVA, i.e. PAT - VERB - AGT. This is also true for intransitive
> > clauses. A PAT argument always precedes its predicate and an
> > AGT argument always follows it. This may lead to horrible strings
> > of verbs, especially if there is an adverb which modifies the
> > main verb (Modifying adverbs aren't morphologically distinguished
> > from ordinary verbs). That is, if the main argument is PAT then
> > all the verbs will follow it:
> >
> > (5) The dog:PAT [ which:PAT:SAME browns ] falls quicks.
> > P [ P V ] V V:ADV
> > 'The brown dog falls quickly.'
> What kind of morphology marks an Adverb? It seems to me that the proper
> treatment of them could also ease the awkwardness a bit.
Yes, I'm having troubles with this, mostly because I haven't a clue
as to how languages without adjectives solve this. Do you have any
suggestions?
> > The solution is to insert a pronoun between the REL-clause and
> > the verb, but *only* if the main argument is a PAT. If the main
> > argument is an AGT it isn't necessary as we saw in (6):
> >
> > (7) The dog:PAT [ which:PAT:SAME browns ] it falls quicks.
> > 'The brown dog falls quickly.'
> Have you considered using internally headed relative clauses for this?
> You could mark the noun according to the role of the relative clause,
> then mark the entire relative clause for the role of the matrix clause.
>
> The dog:PAT browns:PAT falls quicks
> The dog:PAT browns:AGT runs quicks
I'm sorry, my head has run out of brain. What is the matrix clause?
I'm not sure you could explain this better than you already have
but could you try? :)
> > 8. main=PAT rel=AGT -> _lyn_
> > 9. main=PAT rel=PAT -> _le_ [ unmarked ]
> > 10. main=AGT rel=AGT -> _lin_ [ most marked ]
> > 11. main=AGT rel=PAT -> _ly_
> So, when the rel= AGT, the morpheme ends in -n, other
...wise it ends in a vowel? Yup. This is because two morphemes
were joined together: REL:PAT + DIFF:AGT -> le + in + UMLAUT ->
-> lön -> lyn.
> I like the system. Only additional suggestion: could we see the
> Rinya next time? :)
Happy now? :)
> > Did anyone actually read it? ;)
> Naturally. ;)
Seems you're the only one. :P
||| daniel
--
<> Qheil rynenya alandea! <> daniel.andreasson@telia.com <>
<> Rinya lawea! <> Daniel Andreasson <>