About Subordination

Started by Taronyu, March 24, 2010, 04:29:56 PM

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Taronyu

So, I asked Frommer some questions. It's probably best to just paste both emails here:

Quote from: TarskxawngonyuRelative clauses run by arranging their contents to the left or right of an a, sort of like adjectives. Now, with adjectives, I fpìl, but I'm not sure, that you can do this: txana txana trr lehrrap akawng "a very very dangerous bad day". Now, it makes sense to me that you should be able to do the same with relative clauses, but I can't seem to work out how that should work. From some examples, like when using a krr, you use a comma to end the subordinate clause - which I assume would mean an intonational pause. But does that mean that there isn't a lexical item to signal the end of a clause? I prepared the following sentence as an example of what I think we can do:

Utralmì a nantang ke namew fpilve' ikranur a mì saw 'upxaret a tsìyun wivìntxu futa pol tsengit tamok fa nguway tìsusi.

What I had meant to say was: "The nantang, which is in the tree, did not want to send to the ikran in the sky messages which would show that he was there by howling." As you can see, it's a mess. Now, in English orthography, you need commas to properly show the embedded structures. What about in Na'vi? Does the above work? Thanks for helping to clear this up!

Quote from: FrommerMa Taronyu,

Now THAT is a sentence! :-)

OK, let's see . . .

First of all, your premises are correct: RC's can precede or follow their heads just as adjectives can. (In fact, under some analyses, adjectives are simply reduced RC's: ikran atsawl < ikran a lu tsawl, just as an English phrase like "something strange" could be thought of as a reduced form of "something that is strange.")

You're also right that there's no lexical item to mark the end of a subordinate clause, although in speech, pauses and intonation would help. I haven't thought too much about whether written Na'vi should do something with punctuation, the way English does. But keep in mind that the situation with commas is complicated in English (and probably other languages, although I can't vouch for that) by the fact that there are restrictive/non-restrictive distinctions:

(1) The nantang that is in the tree is looking at you.
There are five nantangs around--I'm talking about the one in the tree. So this is a RESTRICTIVE RC.

(2) The nantang, which is in the tree, is looking at you.

There's only one nantang in the picture, and we've already identified it. "Which is in the tree" just gives additional, optional information. This is a NON-RESTRICTIVE RC.

Notice the differences in English: commas in one case but not the other, and, according to certain English teachers, the difference between "that" and "which." (That distinction is not always observed, even by good writers.)

Should Na'vi do something similar? I don't know. We'll see . . .

Now back to your phrase and sentence. You're basically correct on both. But looking at the details, I'd suggest the following revisions:

(3) txana txana trr lehrrap akawng

Keep in mind that "very" is nìtxan; "txan" means "much." So you can't use it this way. What you want is:

(4) kawnga trr lehrrap nìtxan nìtxan

(I'm not sure if Na'vi style allows the repeating of adjectives and adverbs for emphasis, as English does. I'll have to think about that.)

As for your monster:

(5) Utralmì a nantang ke namew fpilve' ikranur a mì saw 'upxaret a tsìyun wivìntxu futa pol tsengit tamok fa nguway tìsusi.

I don't think it's that much of a mess--it's actually pretty good! Just a few suggestions:

(a) After "new," you usually use the simple subjunctive: fpive'
(b) If you want "messages," then it's upxaret, not 'upxaret
(c) "There" is tsatseng
(d) In this case I'd use terok rather than tamok: you're not talking about a point in time but rather about something that extended over a period. In fact, if you translated tok as "occupy," then you'd be likely to say "the place he was occupying," which makes the imperfective nature of the verb clear.
(e) To nominalize si-construction verbs where the non-verbal part is a noun, see if you can get away with just using the noun. In this case, I'd drop the last word.

With all the revisions:

(6) Utralmì a nantang ke namew fpive' ikranur a mì saw upxaret a tsìyun wivìntxu futa pol tsatsengit terok fa nguway.

A complicated sentence, but definitely grammatical. (Just so I understand, though: The nantang got up into the tree by howling? How did that happen? And can nantangs climb trees anyway? <g>)

Prrton

Quote from: Taronyu on March 24, 2010, 04:29:56 PM

Quote from: Frommer

With all the revisions:

(6) Utralmì a nantang ke namew fpive' ikranur a mì saw upxaret a tsìyun wivìntxu futa pol tsatsengit terok fa nguway.

A complicated sentence, but definitely grammatical. (Just so I understand, though: The nantang got up into the tree by howling? How did that happen? And can nantangs climb trees anyway? <g>)

Does this fix the ambiguity about the role of the howling?

Utralmì a nantang ke namew fa nguway fpive' ikranur a mì saw upxaret a tsìyun wivìntxu futa pol tsatsengit terok.

Seems to for me, or am I missing something?

omängum fra'uti

Oh that makes MUCH more sense!
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

Taronyu

That would work. I was trying to highlight that both constructions could be grammatical, currently, as we don't have a complex system for clause placement work out. Yours does make more sense, however, but it's not necessarily how the Na'vi would do it.


I think the main thing to take away is that we can stack clauses, and that there's no marker given for them if this is done. I've been curious about this, before.

omängum fra'uti

I actually came across an interesting situation relating to subordination.  I was writing a sentence out "Oel futa tì'awve nìftue lu fpìl" which as I understand should be perfectly fine...  Then I realized that I could have just dropped the oel because it was in the prior clause.  But then suddenly "Futa tì'awve nìftue lu fpìl" seemed ambiguous if it meant "tì'awve fpìl" or "oel fpìl".  I mean contextually here it's obvious, but if it were a different sentence, it might not have been so.  For example.

Oe ngaru polawm.  Futa ngal tì'eyngit omum fpìl.

Are you thinking it or am I thinking it?
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
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Plumps

Maybe in a situation like this the topic marker comes to the rescue... Once attached to oe in the first sentence it remains the understood subject/topic of the follow-up sentence... just a wild guess ;)

omängum fra'uti

Right that's how it normally would be, but because the subordinate is wholly contained within the main clause before the verb, does IT then give the contextual subject, or does the prior sentence?
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

Plumps

Honestly ... I have no idea...
Seems like in these cases word order is not that free as we'd like to think ... Perhaps in these cases the verb of the main clause needs to be placed at the beginning as an introduction, even if it's just fpìl...

omängum fra'uti

Well the sentence works just fine if oel is in there, just without it I'm not sure which it would mean.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!