Re: Polysynthesis and Clauses

From:    Amanda Babcock <ababcock@...>
> I still want to make my own polysynthetic language.  I just have this
> overwhelming urge to make the inter-word structure *explicit*.  I want
> to inflect clause/words to show how they relate to each other.  Would I
> be going entirely against the spirit of the thing?  Is explicit marking
> of subordinate clauses antithetical to the entire nature of a polysynthetic
> language?
In general, I find that the best way to understand how polysynthetic
languages work is to study a few.  Some polysynthetic languages *do*
inflect the verb for intraclausal relations.  In Meskwaki (Algonkian),
to form relative clauses you lop off the Modal suffix at the end, and
replace it with a suffix agreeing in number, animacy and obviation with
the head noun:

 oSkinaw-e:h-a      me:hkate:wi-t-a
 man-DIM-ANIM.PX.SG IC-fast-3-3SgPxAn
 'a young man who fasted'

Here, the head noun is animate, proximate, and singular.  The relative
clause consists of the participle which has initial change (a kind of
ablaut; the stem here is _mahkate:wi-_), one of the markers of conjunct
forms (of which all participles are a part), the -t- marks the subject
of the *relative clause* (which happens to be identical to that of the
matrix clause) and the -a agrees with the head in person-number features.
Anyways, that's just one way to do it.  In Phaleran, my conlang, there's
a switch-reference marker marking the lack of coreferentiality with the
head noun.  Phaleran also likes "headless" relative clauses, with no
overt head NP.  These can be seen in my (very incomplete) Grammar of
Phaleran here:

<http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier/phaleran/PhaleranGrammar.pdf>

Be careful! It's big.  Just skip down to the part about relative
clause formation.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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