Re: Complement clauses

David J. Peterson sikyal:

> I'm still having fits with this in Zhyler.   I created a Turkish style
> head-final language, which is so backwards from my L1's (English and Spanish) that I
> keep asking myself, "Is it unnatural to think this way?   Or is this just my
> L1 interference?"   Here's an example:
>
> jememben-yf us-lar-al mat-um.
>
> noodle-GEN. eat-PAST-2sg. see-1sg.-PRES.
>
> "I see that you ate some of the noodles."
>
> Well, now this example is so easy that it makes me look silly.   It'd just be
> like saying in English, "You ate some of the noodles, I see", only sounding
> like "Some of the noodles ate you, see I".   That's not tough to wrap one's
> brain around at all!   I think it's when it gets long, I get lost.   Something
> like, "I hope the man you saw didn't think I was your husband" would have to be
> worded like, "I your husband am, he thought it, you saw him, the man didn't
> think it, I hope".   Yeah.   That to me seems *really* strange.   Yet, I'm told
> it's possible, so I have to take it on faith.
When attending a lecture on Japanese, which is aggressively head-final,
examples just like this came up. They were virtually impossible to
understand in the interlinear, but evidently they were completely clear
and comprehensible japanese sentences.  So let your faith be strengthened
:).


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"