Re: a request.

7F00,0000,0000Courier New> On 16 Jan 00, at 16:20, B Elliott Walker wrote:
>
> > âllo, all...
> >
> > i'v been piddling about with my new lang, here, (while i should have been
> > doing my syntax assignment, alas) and i was wondering how yous do
> > relative clauses in your langs, as i'm currently looking for ideas.
> >
>
Many moons ago, mathias asked about the same thing, with a set of example
questions. I answered at the time regarding Wenetaic. Here's my reply to his
post, which became part of the official Wenetaic examples:

(There are a number of ways in which this is lexically no longer good Wenetaic, as
I've re-done a lot of roots in light of actually having something to base them
on , but grammatically I think it's just fine)

Appologies if the formatting is off, I'm having one or two minor technical issues with my mailer.

> rel. subject:
> "The dog that saw the cat was large."
kuni.t  kato.r  phithphe.r.yi.t  a.t   makhme.t
dog.g3  cat.g4  see.g4.DAT.g3    0.g3  be-big.g3

> rel. object:
> "The dog saw the cat that killed the mouse."
kuni.t  kato.r  musi.p    mortu.p.ru.r    a.r   a.t   phithphe.r.yi.t
dog.g3  cat.g4  mouse.g5  kill.g5.ACC.g4  0.g4  0.g3  see.g4.DAT.g3

> nested:
> "The dog that saw the cat that killed the mouse that was large drank
> from the river that John put the poison in."
I had to break this down into its component parts to translate it, so I'll show them here:
1) musip makhmep - the big mouse
2) kator 1 mortupyir ar - the cat that kills 1
3) kunit 2 phithpheryit at 4 phowpheprut - the dog that sees 2 drinks 4
4) purop Yonus patopayis ap - the river that John poisons

kuni.t, kato.r musi.p makhme.p mortu.p.ru.r a.r phithphe.r.yi.t dog.g3 cat.g4 mouse.g5
be-big.g5 kill.g5.ACC.g4 0.g4 see.g4.DAT.g3

a.t,  puro.p,   Yonu.s   pato.p.a.yi.s            a.p,  phowphe.p.ru.t
0.g3  river.g5  John.g2  sickness.g5.near.DAT.g2  0.g5  eat/drink.g5.ACC.g3

> rel. indirect object:
> "The dog that John gave the ball to."
kuni.t  para.t.yi.p     Yonu.s   inri.t.yi.s     a.p   (a.t)
dog.g3  ball.g3.DAT.g5  John.g2  move.g3.DAT.g2  0.g5  (0.g3)

> rel. oblique:
> "The mouse that the cat chewed on." or,
musi.p    kato.r  phowphe.p.ru.r      (a.p)
mouse.g5  cat.g4  eat/drink.g5.ACC.g4  (0.g4)

> "The cat that the dog was bigger than."
kato.r  kuni.t  makhme.r.re.t         (a.r)
cat.g4  dog.g3  be-big.g4.REL-ATT.g3  (0.g4)

The above three would probably simply be phrased as a direct SVO sentance, rather
than as above, unless they were part of a bigger phrase (eg) "The cat that the
dog was bigger than ate a mouse"

> rel. posessor:
> "The dog saw the cat whose teeth were huge."
kuni.t  kato.r  thethni.r.ce.p    makhme.ta.p         a.r
dog.g3  cat.g4  teeth.g4.COMP.g5  be-big.EMPH-ATT.g5  0.g4

phithphe.r.yi.t
see.g4.DAT.g3