Re: Creative ways to form relative clauses?

Daniel Bowman wrote:
>
> I've been a lurker on the forums for some time,
> but I thought I'd break my silence with a question
> that's been vexing me for some time:  How should
> my conlang form relative clauses?
>
> Currently, my conlang follows the English model,
> and thus the relative clause structure of the sentence
> "I hate the man who hit me yesterday" would be
> quite similar in my conlang.  I'd rather do it some
> other way since the rest of my grammar is decidedly
> non-English.

My conlang Utega follows the form of some Austro-
nesian languages. It's VOS and the verb has forms
for four voices: active, passive, benefactive, and
oblique. The rule is that the headword of a relative
clause must be the subject of that clause, so there
is no relative marker. The verb simply follows the
headword and is in an appropriate voice so the
headword is the subject.

Mafutha li fara mesa.
PRES-hate-ACT the man I.
I hate the man.

or more commonly:

Mafufutha-sa li fara.
PRES-hate-PAS-1SG the man.
The man is hated by me.

So your sentence would be:

Mafufutha-sa li fara ramiditha men india.
PRES-hate-PAS-1SG the man PAST-hit-ACT me yesterday.
I hate the man who hit me yesterday

Mafufutha-sa li fara ramimiditha di brotha-sa india.
PRES-hate-PAS-1SG the man PAST-hit-PAS by brother-1SG yesterday.
I hate the man whom my brother hit yesterday

--Ph. D.

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