Re: Silindion Relative Clauses

Hallo!

On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 08:36:08 -0800,
Elliott Lash <erelion12@...> wrote:

> --- Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
>
> > Hallo!
> >
> > On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 14:57:22 -0800,
> > Elliott Lash <erelion12@...> wrote:
> >
> > > There is a distinct difference in Low Silindion
> > > relative clauses and High Silindion relative
> > clauses.
> > >
> > > Low Silindion Relative structures are made up of
> > two
> > > parts:
> > >
> > > 1) Relative Pronoun
> > > 2) Relative Clause
> > >
> > > The relative pronoun is:
> > >
> > >   të   (animate)    = who   (singular/plural)
> > >   ta   (inanimate)  = which
> > >   tona  (inanimate) = which (plural)
> >
> > This is somewhat odd.  No number disctinction in the
> > animate form,
> > but in the inanimate?  I seem to remember a tendency
> > towards having
> > more number distinctions on the top end of the
> > animacy scale than
> > on the bottom end.
>
> It's only synchronically I guess. The singular/plural
> distinction fell together in the animate due to sound
> change:
>
>   të  < *tye  (singular)
>   të  < *tyei (plural)
>
>   ta   < *ta
>   tona < *ta:na
>
>  I suppose though it is vaguely weird, but it seems
> like it's really too engrained to change that right
> now.
I see.  That's nice: a typologically remarkable feature with a
reasonable diachronic explanation.

> > > Finally, with a non-nominative case:
> > >
> > >  Nissa phessina i lavanta tein yulavassë apa.
> > >  "Let's eat the game that father caught"
> > >
> > >  nissa phess-i-na i  lavat-na  tei-n
> > >  let   eat-SBJ-1p the game-ACC. which-ACC
> > >
> > >  yo-a-lavass-ë       apa
> > >  REL-aug-catch-PST  father
> >
> > Nice!
>
>  Also, I just remembered this now, there is a
> tendency, perhaps colloquially, to treat animals as
> "inanimate" and reserve the animate for persons. I had
> a hesitation while writing the above sentence, since I
> wanted to put "tan" instead of "tein". But I opted for
> the more "standard" form, I guess.
There is no such tendency in Old Albic.

> > The Old Albic relative clause is opened by a
> > particle that is
> > inflected for the animacy/gender, number and case of
> > the head noun.
> > Note that the case is not according to the function
> > within the
> > relative clause, but according to the function
> > within the outer
> > clause.  If the head noun is a core argument
> > (agentive or objective)
> > in the relative clause, no pronoun is necessary as
> > it is
> > cross-referenced on the verb.  Otherwise, a
> > resumptive pronoun
> > is used.
>
> I like this idea a lot this seems less like European
> languages than Silindion, in this regard.
Thank you!

> > Example:
> >
> > (1) O ndero o matara am mbas melara im hinim.
> >     o           ndero     o           am    mbas
> >     the:M(-AGT) man(-AGT) REL:M(-AGT) the:I bread
> >     mel-a-sa        i-m        hin-i-m
> >     love-PRES-3SG:A the:PL-OBJ child-PL-OBJ
>
> There's a lot of Sindarin/Quenya in there isnt there?
>   mat-, mbas, mel-, hin-. Also, you forgot to gloss
> "matara" but I suppose it's "mat-a-sa"
Yes, it is _mat-a-sa_ `eat-PRES-3SG:A'.  And that's a mistake:
it ought to be _matára_ (_mat-a-a-sa_ `eat-PRES-3SG:P-3SG:A')
because it is transitive, of course.

> How much of Old Albic's is derived from those too
> languages?
Quite much indeed.  The sentence has the property of all its content
words being ripped off from Tolkien's Elvish.  A leftover from the
days when it was Nur-ellen, the modern-day descendant of Sindarin.
I am actually thinking of weeding out the Tolkienian vocabulary;
at any rate, I have long ago stopped taking words from Quenya or
Sindarin, instead having derived more than 100 roots from PIE roots
by regular sound correspondences (based on the assumption that
Albic and IE are related).  And the grammar owes very little to
Tolkien's languages; it is mostly based on Pre-Proto-Indo-European
grammar as internally reconstructed by me under the influence of
_Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans_ by T. V. Gamkrelidze and
V. V. Ivanov, with some spicy bits from Celtic and Georgian.

> >
> > Here an example of a resumptive pronoun:
> >
> > (4) am mbar am matara o ndero am mbas tathas
> >     `the house which the man eats the bread in'
> >
> > The relative clause _am matara o ndero am mbas
> > tathas_ contains
> > the inanimate resumptive pronoun in the locative
> > case as its last
> > element (_tathas_).
> What's the non-locative of "tathas"?  tath-??
_tath_, no ending.

> > ----------------------------------------------------
> > > An even more poetic relative structure that High
> > > Silindion (especially older High Silindion, almost
> > > Middle High Silindion) can use is a relative
> > suffix
> > > attached to a conjugated verb. This suffix is
> > <-ië>
> > >
> > > Here's the first line of a prayer to Alarie, the
> > > moon-goddess:
> > >
> > > A Alárië anti yendán nénië
> > > "Oh Alarie who gives us joy"
> > > A   Alárië an-ti  yendá-n né-n-ië
> > > VOC Alarie us-DAT joy-ACC give-3s-REL
> >
> > Now that is an interesting construction!
>
> I'm unsure if you meant interesting as in unusual or
> just interesting in general?
Interesting in general, and unfamiliar to me.

>       Here the relative suffix
> is ripped off of some reconstructions of Proto-Celtic,
> which use -yo/-io instead of -ie. But the idea is the
> same.
Ah, Celtic again, the box of wonders among the IE branches!

>
> I'm not sure what the long trail of lines was all
> about, glad you enjoyed though...
Probably some editing artifact.  Blank lines are like silt: they tend
to sediment on the bottom of texts while editing them ;-)  At least,
that is my experience.  Some editors also add lines when you scroll
beyond the last line of the text.

Greetings,

Jörg.