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Re: Genitives NPs as Relative Clauses

From:Jesse Bangs <jaspax@...>
Date:Friday, November 16, 2001, 8:41
On Thu, 15 Nov 2001 06:38:31 +0000 Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...>
writes:
> Ok, here's my question. I've been thinking of adapting this idiom > for use in > Erëtas but I have doubts as to its scalability. Are there any other > languages > that use similar constructions. Just for reference's sake, here's > how I intend > on representing direct and indirect relative clauses: > > Direct relative clause (`that I see'): > ...of my seeing... > > Indirect relative clauses (`that sees me'): > ...with my seeing... > > Thoughts? Could it work well?
You might want to look at Ancient Greek syntax with regard to relative clauses. Theirs isn't much like what you have here, but it's well-developed enough that you can scale almost any relative clause onto a participle. In fact, I can see some problems with scalability that you might have, especially since the subject-object relations are indicated through a preposition. How will you keep things clear in more complex situations where the verb has more than two arguments, or when it has subclauses of its own? In Ancient Greek, the subject of the participle is whatever noun the participle agrees with in case. The object is in its normal case. I found this example from Xenophon: ándras helómenoi sún Kleárkho: pémpousin ándr.as helómen.oi sún Kleárkh.o: pémp.ousin men-ACC having-chosen-NOMPL with Klearchus-DAT send-3PL Hyper-literal: "Men having chosen with Klearchus they send" "They send the men they chose with Klearchus" Another longer example. I bracketed the participial and infinitive phrases, but I've foregone the interlinear: hoi men ephasan [[harpazontas ti] katakopenai hupo ton Kilikon], hoi de [[hupoleiphthentas kai ou dunamenous [heurein to allo strateuma oude tas hodous] [eita planomenous] apolesthai]. Some said (them) [[plundering something] to be cut to peices by the Kilikians], but others [[being left behind and not being able [to find the other army or the roads] [after wandering] to be lost.] Some said that they were slaughtered by the Kilikians when they were plundering, but others said they were left behind and weren't able to find the other army or the roads, and so were lost after wandering. This sentence has exactly one finite verb, but it packs all of those English subclauses in with just a few participles. All of the participles are in the accusative plural, as well, which means that they must refer to some group that's the object of the verb "say." Because of this, it's unnecessary to use an actual pronoun, though one must be supplied in English.. In Greek, it's perfectly clear--or as clear as anything ever is in Greek. Jesse S. Bangs Pelíran jaspax@ juno.com "We couldn't all be cowboys Some of us are clowns" --Counting Crows