From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Fri Jan 12 04:04:53 1996 Received: from wnt.dc.lsoft.com (wnt.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.7]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id EAA22649 for ; Fri, 12 Jan 1996 04:04:50 -0500 Message-Id: <199601120904.EAA22649@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by wnt.dc.lsoft.com (LSMTP for Windows NT v1.0a) with SMTP id 454BED30 ; Fri, 12 Jan 1996 2:32:52 -0500 Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 02:03:56 MET Reply-To: Goran Topic Sender: Lojban list From: Goran Topic Subject: Re: GEN: Nested preposed relative clauses X-To: Lojban Listserv To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2423 > I am taking a wider view at the problem of preposed relative > clauses seeing that Jorge isn't very happy with them. > > We can divide languages in two classes: to those which use > descriptors (articles) and to those which do not. English, > Spanish, German and Lojban belong to the first class, Finnish, > Japanese and Chinese to the second one. I don't know Spanish > or Chinese so I speak nothing about them - I only make inferences. > > Some descriptor languages (English) have very limited possibilities > of using preposed restrictive clauses. German fares better but > succumbs soon with a bad case of center-embedding, as does Lojban. > > In some non-descriptor languages (Finnish) the preposed clauses > are a viable/preferred alternative to postposed relative clauses. > In some others (Japanese) they are about the only possibility. > > J: ((((machi) e iku) otoko) o miru) kodomo > N V > |_______| > VP N > |_____| > NP V > |________| > VP N > |_____| > NP > > F: ((((kaupunkiin) menevan) miehen) nakeva) lapsi > G: das ((den (in die Stadt gehenden) Mann) sehende) Kind > L: le (poi (le (poi (le tcadu) cu se klama ku'o) nanmu) cu se viska > ku'o) verba > E: *((((into the town) going) man) seeing) child Well, I am only a beginning Chinese student, but I think it should be something like C: ((((cheng2) qu4 de) ren2) kan4 de) xiao3hai2 Anyway, it definitely uses preposed clauses, whether I am correct or not in my attempt. But, Croatian disproves your theory: we have no articles, but we can't prepose the relative clauses (actually, we could, but it is way too ugly to be actually used - I don't have the slightest idea what the official grammar has to say about Cr2): Cr1: Dijete (koje vidi (covjeka (koji ide (u grad)))) Cr2: *((((U grad) iduceg) covjeka) viduce) dijete co'o mi'e. goran. -- GAT/CS/O d?@ H s:-@ !g p1(2)@ !au(0?) a- w+(+++) (!)v-@(+) C++(++++) UU/H(+) P++>++++ L(>+) !3 E>++ N+ K(+) W--(---) M-- !V(--) -po+ Y(+) t+@(+++) !5 !j R+@ G-@(J++) tv+(++) b++@ D++ B? e+* u@ h!$ f?(+) r-- !n(+@) y+. GeekCode v2.1, modifications left to reader to puzzle out