Welsh also uses similar constructions: "Mae annwyd arnaf" (there-is-a cold
on-me) for "I have a cold" and uses possessives similarly to denote personal
objects of verbs: "Rydw i'n ei gweld" (I am her seeing) for "I see her". And
don't you just love conjugated prepositions? Omeina has lots of those!
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Barr" <dbarr@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 1:19 AM
Subject: Re: Genitives NPs as Relative Clauses
> Keith Gaughan scripsit:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> > In my (English) idiolect, it's not uncommon for me to use genitive
> > constructions
> > in the place of relative clauses. Example:
> >
> > My idiolect: ...of my seeing...
> > 'Normal English': ...that I see...
> >
> > It's not something I always use, and I can't predict when I use it but I
> do. I
> > think there's parallel idioms in Irish, but I can't think of any like it
> off
> > the top of my head.
>
> Keith, this is definitely a calque from Irish (i.e. Gaeilge) to Irish
> English - "da kannst du Gift d'rauf nehmen" as Christophe said - Scottish
> Gaelic does exactly the same thing.
>
> "Fear a gaoil" means "the man she loves" but actually translates as "the
man
> of her love": "fear" "man," "a" "her" (doesn't lenite the next word, which
> is why I chose it, to keep things simple) "gaoil" "of love," genitive of
> "gaol" "love."
>
> "Fear a faicinn" "the man of her seeing" does sound a little odd - you'd
> normally say "am fear a chunnaic i" "the man that she saw" *or* "the man
> that saw her" (without an adverb in there you can't distinguish them) - I
> think it's more to do with, um... states? Terminology is breaking down
here,
> what I mean is that "... that she saw" or "... that saw her" is a single
> definite action, "that she loves" is sort of ongoing, and internal. Dunno.
>
> Scottish Gaelic at least - and I would assume Irish - is in general much
> more noun-oriented than verb-oriented; many many many idioms involve
simply
> prepositions - e.g. "tha cóig doilearan/miosan agam air," literally "there
> are five dollars/months at me on him," less literally "I have five
> dollars/months on him," idiomatically "he owes me five dollars" or "I am
> five months older than he is," respectively.
>
> Verbs don't have infinitives *per se*, they have "verbal nouns" - which
have
> gender and decline like nouns, how frightening is *that*? :) To say
nothing
> of what they call "conjugated prepositions"...
>
> Doug
>