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Re: Genitives NPs as Relative Clauses

From:Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...>
Date:Saturday, November 17, 2001, 20:10
Ar 17:19 15/11/01 -0800, bhac Doug Barr le scríobh chugam:

>Keith Gaughan scripsit: > > > 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."
Whilst that doesn't sound wrong, I've never used that in Irish myself *ever*! I'm far more likely to use a normal relative clause. Had I picked up Irish rather than learning it, this might be different though.
>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.
That's an idiom still actively used in English here too.
>Verbs don't have infinitives *per se*, they have "verbal nouns" - which have >gender and decline like nouns, how frightening is *that*? :)
The gerunds? Hmmm... never caused me any confusion. I like them, in fact. In Erëtas, I'm definitely going to include them. Damn. I was just about to type another idiom that I'm mocked about down here in Cork. I'm from Sligo and I have a tendency to end certain sentences in the likes of `so I am', `so he does', e.g. I'm from Sligo, so I am He hit the wall, so he did. It's seen as a northern thing and I've only really heard it used in places north of Athlone. Interesting reduplication of sorts though.
>To say nothing >of what they call "conjugated prepositions"...
Prepositional pronouns, wayhey! I can't believe I've never seen a non-gaelic conlang with them yet. K. -- Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...> http://homepage.eircom.net/~kmgaughan/ I can decide what I give / But it's not up to me / What I get given -=Bjork=-

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>