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Re: Genitives NPs as Relative Clauses

From:Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...>
Date:Thursday, November 15, 2001, 10:04
Ar 10:16 15/11/01 +0100, bhac Christophe Grandsire le scríobh chugam:

>En réponse à Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...>: > > > 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? > >Well, there are languages that use nominalisation of verbs to make relative >subclauses (Finnish - though it also has relative subclauses with finite verb >forms and relative pronouns -, Quetchua and Turkish are examples of that). >Finish can even use nominalisation for completive subclauses. So it's >absolutely not unnatural.
Neat! Then there are
>The only problem you could have if using a genitive >structure is the orientation (subjective or objective) of the genitive. >English >(like Modern French) has only subjective genitive: "my fear" is equivalent >to "I am afraid", "I fear" or "the fear that I experience", never to "somebody >is afraid of me", "the fear that somebody feels towards me".
Using it with the preposition `of', does hint at a objective meaning though.
>In Middle French, >possessives could also have an objective meaning (the second one I showed >you), >but it was mostly restricted in poetry (I know a few examples in theater plays >in verse). I don't know if English ever allowed such a construction. The >problem is the ambiguity that it creates: will "my seeing" mean "I see", >or "(someone) sees me"? Your idea seems to make sense (at least as for the use >of the preposition "of" or "with". E.g. in Latin, the ablative - instrumental >in languages that have it - is used for such construction: vir magno >animo: the >man WHO HAS a great soul - more often transformed into an adjective: vir >magnanimus -),
I've always felt the difference between nouns and adjectives was rather loose myself, especially genitives and the like.
>but I'm a little concerned about the use of the possessive >adjectives to mark subject or object of the verb of the relative clause. How >will you translate a sentence like "to whom I give it", where both subject and >object are present as pronouns?
Something like `X with-giving of-it from-me', I would say.
>In my Azak, I solved this problem by having two different genitive cases: a >genitive subjective and a genitive objective (in fact, they are genitive >ergative and genitive absolutive, since Azak is an ergative language), and >thus >two different sets of possessive adjectives.
How would something like that have evolved?
>But it's only an idea. Maybe you want to keep the ambiguity, or use other >constructions.
I think the above construction is the way I'd like to go. It sort of fits my idiolect anyway. 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=-

Replies

Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...>