Re: Genitives NPs as Relative Clauses

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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