Re: Relative clauses in Ikanirae Seru

En réponse à Estel Telcontar :

>(Anyone know about a natlang that marks relative clauses in a similar
>way, using a marker like my |se|?  What do such natlangs do about the
>ambiguity I found?)
Often natlangs with simple ways to mark relative clauses like yours can
relativise only some functions, i.e. for instance I think that some
Austronesian language (can't remember which one, but it's a cousin of
Tagalog) can only relativise subjects, i.e. the antecedent of the relative
clause can only be the *subject* of the relative clause. So in a sentence
that would translate as "the man that he saw him...", only the first "he"
can refer to "the man", since it's the only relativisable function.

Other languages simply live with the ambiguity. Look at Japanese! :))

Finally, another way, especially for languages which are *not* pro-drop, is
to indicate the relativised function by the *absence* of a pronoun. Taking
your example again, *"manikoso se _ seru na eki" ("_" indicates the hole :)
) would mean "the man that talks about him", while *"manikoso se eki seru
na _" would mean "the man that he talks about". This way is how European
languages do it :) .


Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.

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