Re: Attributive Nominal Forms and Syntax in a lang experiment

--- JR <fuscian@...> wrote:
> on 11/18/03 9:46 PM, Elliott Lash at
> erelion12@YAHOO.COM wrote:
> > Relative Clauses:
> > bunlo 'soup'     pre-attr:  bunlu
> >
> > nga zoy bunlo
> > I   heat soup
> > 'I head the soup'
> >
> > mu        kwo          nga  bunlu zoy
> > pleasure  come-toward   me  soup hot
> > 'I like hot soup'
>
> Is there a relative clause in the conlang version
> here? The translation
> doesn't have one. Of course 'bunlu' would be used
> anyway because of the
> adjective 'zoy' - or is 'zoy' itself the relative
> clause?

The translation doesn't have one, since it would be
odd in English to say "I like the soup which
is/was/has been/will be heated'

But what about in this case:

mu kwo nga bunlu lai zoy.
"I like the soup which you heat up"

(the tense could also be: you've heated up, you are
heating up' etc)

But, a bare verb without a pronoun could also be
translated as a relative clause, it's just that the
verb "zoy" sounds weird as a relative clause in many
cases, so it just is translated as the adjective "hot"

Take this case:
nga lo kwa tshiji be      hao
I   not see person start  start

I don't see the person who is starting to talk.
I didn't see the person who was starting to talk.

etc.

tshiji person-pre:attrb.
tshije person


> > Some other weird type of Phrase:
> > ne 'this'    pre-attr: ni
> >
> > (shi) ni          gi shyuke
> > exist this-attr   my  house
> >
> > 'This is my house'
>
> Is "this my house" all one phrase, and then you're
> saying that that exists?
> That seems quite different from the English
> translation.
No, I'm saying

(shi) [ni]  [gi shyuke]

I think of this as a sort of 'essive' construction.

(exist) [this-as] [my house]

"This exists as my house."


> > does any of this make sense so far? or should i
> > explain better. If i have done well
> explaining...does
> > this feature show up in any other languages?
> >
> > Elliott
>
> This does show up in some form or another in other
> langs. I have this paper
> here by Johanna Nichols on "Head-Marking and
> Dependent-Marking Grammar," and
> it has some examples of head nouns being marked:
>
> Persian (and there's a similar Tadzhik example):
> kûh-e boländ
> mountain high
> 'high mountain'
>
> "The suffix -i/-e marks the noun as having a
> dependent - without further
> specifying the type of dependency, the
> gender/number/person of the dependent
> or head, or the like."
should have remembered this one! I have a whole book
on Persian. Thanks for reminding me


Thanks for the other examples :)

Elliott

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