Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Trebor Jung" <treborjung@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 3:43 PM
Subject: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.


>I can't think of any ideas for my conlangs' relative clauses besides these:
> as in English, Turkish (participles), and Egyptian Arabic (resumptive
> pronouns).
>
> Any others?
>
> Thanks,
> Trebor
There are a variety of relative clause structures, so you have to be
specific here.  There's the one that expresses opinion or thought, as Remi's
"emotional case" does: "I thought that the boy was your son."  "I feel that
it's time to go."   But there are similarly structured relative clauses that
don't involve emotion, usually of the stating, writing, saying, observing
variety:  "I said that I had sold the book" (a statement of fact).  "The
article says that the man died."  "The time clock registers that he departed
early."  How would Remi construe that?  Then there's that ornery distinction
made between "proper" and "improper" relative clauses with who/whom/whose,
etc, so often set out in Welsh grammars:  "I saw the boy who kicked the
ball."  "I saw the boy whose cup was full." [these examples; I'm not making
them up!] "I like the girl whom you hate."  Proper relatives are so called
because the who/whom refer back to either the nominative or the accusative.
Improper relatives refer back to referents in the oblique case: "The boy
whose aunt had died came to see me."  "I know the book to which you are
referring."  "I saw the man to whom you spoke."  Of course these terms
proper/improper stand out in my head because Welsh makes a distinction in
its use of particles to express them, and English prescriptive grammar
(drummed into me as a kid) makes you recall these distinction and the
"correct" use of prepositions with respect to them.  But they are worth
thinking about in a conlang, too.  How would you distinguish between "I
thought that it was blue" and "it is a matter of fact that the boy is blue"?
Or: "I kissed the boy who was blue," and "I saw to whom the blue boy blew a
kiss"?  :) :)

Teonaht expresses the first type of relative--call it emotional or factual
or what have you--with a simple juxtaposition and a reversal of syntax:

    Elry kare nel li beto fyl bantwel.
    Past-I think was the boy your son.
    "I thought the boy was your son."

[Note how easy it is in modern English.  It's a juxtaposition of two
sentences.  Relative clauses in many languages start out this way:  "I saw
the woman, she kissed the steps of the tomb," wherein the relative is
fashioned out of the pronoun, or in Middle Welsh the preverbal particle.

The two verbs juxtaposed indicates the start of a relative clause.  Usually,
Teonaht is zero-copula, but in this case the conjugated form of parem is
invoked to set up the juxtaposition.

Here's one without the copula:

           Ely  krespr conauarel             la bantwel.
    Past-she write   die-COMP.PST. her son.
        "She wrote that her son had died."

For versions of the "proper relative" as accusative we have something like
this:

        Il beto elo ke ravvo fy il/etsa/der/hain
      the (Acc) boy PAST-I see love you the (one)/same/him/whom.

So there are a variety of resumptive pronouns you can use in T., one of them
being the bare article, one of them signaling relativity (hai[n]).

For versions of the "improper relative," then this:

        Il beto elo ke kresprel fy euiil/eueetsa/edder/ehhain
        the boy (ACC) PAST-he see write-PAST you to the (one)/to same/ to
him/to whom.
       "He saw the boy to whom you wrote."  "He saw the boy you wrote to."

Then there is another kind of relative, related to the improper relative:  I
love the man whose hair is black!  In this respect, Teonaht borrows somewhat
unimaginatively from Semitic and Celtic grammar by just saying: I love the
red-his-hair man, but it takes on a new flavor under OSV structure:

        Il zefz flero lo vimba der yrravo!
        The man red his mane him I love.   Requires a resumptive pronoun in
der before the main verb.  Requires a "z" after "zef" to indicate that the
accusative stops there, and it's not a red man in this case.  Damn the
postpositioned adjective in Teonaht!

(vimba is used of a lion's mane, of a horse's mane, but also of luxurious
flowing hair on a human.  Could also be hair and beard on a man).

I suppose you could put this in the usual pattern:

    Il zef ryrravo na lo vimba flero
    The man I love is his hair red.   (the juxtaposed copula again)

Then there is a relative construction with the copula that I haven't really
used much in writing Teonaht:

  Il zef ryggarne pahai beuimonaht.
  the man I like be who compassionate.
"I prefer the guy who's kind."

    Yppre pesthai li rando
    I know will be who the king.
    "I know who will be king."

Pahai, pelhai, peshai and all the permutations for oblique cases: padhain,
pelthain, pesthain... pajhain, peljhain, pehshain... it was a chore.

THEN:  there is the substantivization (or gerundizing?) of a verb with
possessive pronoun, you just use the verb/noun:  "I saw your swimming in the
lake!"  (i.e., I saw that you swam in the lake)

    Fyl nwehsrem celil mifranil uarry ke.
    your swim       in the deeplake have-I see

I prefer that he read books, which can also be expressed in English as I
prefer him reading books or, more prescriptively, I prefer his reading
books, is structured the same way in Teonaht:  rin nikkyam lo elepmaren
ryggarne.  "His reading of books I prefer."

That's about all I can remember at the moment.

Heinrik wrote:

> In Tyl Sjok you use the relative clause instead of the modified
> noun, so you 'embed' the relative clause into the matrix clause.
> The modified noun is found in the relative clause, where it is
> optionally  marked to be modified.
>
> E.g.:
> Matrix clause:    I   like tea. = 'I like the tea.'
> Relative clause:  you buy tea.  = 'You bought tea.'
> Together:
>        I like you buy tea.           (unmarked referent)
>        I like you buy REF tea.       (marked referent)
>        'I like the tea that you bought.'
This is lovely.  How do you know that it doesn't mean "I like that you
bought tea?"  How do you express that?  Put the referent marking before
"buy"?


Sally
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/pronouns.html
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/verbs.html

I saw to whom the blue boy blew a kiss:

First:  the blue boy blew a kiss to her.
    Le beto bov bocaz         eddam elo htilioma
    The boy blue kiss-ACC to her did-he whisper
    [boca pronounced /'butS@/, i.e., bootch-uh.  Same derivation as boca,
though!  beto: /'betu/; bov: /buv/
    -z added to boca to indicate accusative case when syntax has been
changed to SOV.

I saw: Elry ke

Elry ke htilioma ehhain le bov beto bocaz.
Did-I see whisper to whom the blue boy a kiss!

"I saw who the blue boy blew a kiss to!"  English is wonderfully ductile!

(of course what needs to be contemplated is how one expresses emphasis in
Teonaht, given its rigid syntax, other than just pitch or vocal emphasis.
"I saw who 'THE BLUE BOY blew a kiss to."  "I saw who it was that the blue
boy blew a kiss to."  Probably recombinations, as in English:  DAM elry ke
htilioma le bov beto bocaz IHHAIN: Her did I see whispered the blue boy a
kiss TO WHOM.  More engineering work to come.  Emphasis may have to reside
in the chiastic structure, with the emphasized element opening and closing
the main and subordinate clauses.  More bridgework needed)

Replies