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Re: Resumptive pronoun?

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 26, 2001, 22:55
OOPS.  I wrote:
>Indonesian is an example of #2-- the relative _yang_ can only be the subj. >or obj. of its clause:
Wrong! _Yang_ can only be the _subject_ of its clause, hence the passive verb form in....
>baju yang di/pakai/nya itu, hijau 'the shirt (lit. >which is worn by him) is green';
and active verb form in: orang yang membeli rumahku... 'the man who
>bought my house....' vs.
_yang_ as neither here nor there in: orang yang ku/jual rumah/ku kepada/nya 'the man to
>whom I sold my house....' lit. man REL I-sell house-my to-him.... (this
last
>may not be acceptable in grammar-book terms! but I seem to recall hearing
it
>a lot).
There are ways to avoid this "ungrammatical" usage, at least with some verbs. It would probably be considered a "westernized loan translation", as it is in something like: Ali berkata yang Siti cantik 'Ali says _that_ Siti is pretty'-- that's definitely considered Bad. (Ironically, about the only place you see it is in turgid academese.)