Re: Genitives NPs as Relative Clauses
| From: | Herman Miller <hmiller@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, November 16, 2001, 5:11 |
|---|
On Thu, 15 Nov 2001 06:38:31 +0000, Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...>
wrote:
>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.
>
>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:
Interestingly, Tirèlhat has been going in that direction. The personal
pronouns have become attached to the verbs, and the subject pronouns are
identical to the possessive prefixes that get attached to nouns. So these
examples turn out as:
of my seeing: u lè-lizha-ri
GEN my-see -ing
that I see: ni lè-lizha-ve-n
that 1s-see -(evidential/tense/aspect suffixes)
> Direct relative clause (`that I see'):
> ...of my seeing...
>
> Indirect relative clauses (`that sees me'):
> ...with my seeing...
or "of my being seen"? (Tir. "u lèlizharuri").
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