TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Museum for the best conlanging and conworldery threads. Ask mods to move threads here.
Astraios
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 2974
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:38 am
Location: Israel

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Astraios »

Astraios is never silly!

Thry
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2085
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2011 12:15 pm
Location: Spain

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Thry »

Qwynegold wrote:I'm a little nervous posting this because it's a litte odd. :/

Í como visie via Jack prementè enconstructùra, la zha.
1SG.M PST see by Jack DPST PASS-build, DEF.SG.F house-ACC.F
I saw the house that Jack built.

Í sciensa Jack prementè constructùra lisu zha.
1SG.M know Jack DPST build DEM.DET.DIST.SG.F house-ACC.F
I know that Jack built that house.

Í como visie Jack prementè nàtività in, la zha.
1SG.M PST see Jack DPST be.born inside DEF.SG.F house-ACC.F
I saw the house where Jack was born.

I need to work with that last type of sentence, because I'm not sure at all how to express it. Is it a place clause?
Is that a romlang?

The last one is a relative clause:

I saw the house + Jack was born in the house = I saw the house [in which Jack was born]

User avatar
Ser
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1542
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:55 am
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia / Colombie Britannique, Canada

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Ser »

finlay wrote:keep it here – their primary purpose is to get people practising their conlangs, although seeing natlangs is always a bonus and a lot of people only produce natlang translations. (I don't think I've ever seen Astraios post anything but Lakota, for instance – does he even have a conlang anymore? :P)
Yeah, I've never posted a TC translation in any of my conlangs, I generally do Spanish unless it's very boring or something.

----
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1418
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2011 11:15 pm

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by ---- »

Kinál:

Siřéiqʼó.
1S.EVID.certainty-2S-know
or
Siqʼó kʼá éiqʼó.
1S-know CONJ 2S-know
I know that you know.

Lksúgt smpʼcʼesau kʼá Ciak ňvrásné.
house.PAT 1S.3S-see-PST.REC CONJ Jack 3S.3S-build-PST.DIST
I saw the house that Jack built.

Ciak lksúgt siřňvrásné.
Jack house.PAT 1S.EVID.certainty-3S.3S-build-PST.DIST
or
Siqʼó kʼá Ciak lksúgt ňvrásné.
1S-know CONJ house.PAT 3S.3S-build-PST.DIST
I know that Jack built that house.

Lksúgt smpʼcʼesau kʼá Ciakgt anánqánasúsné.
house.PAT 1S.3S-see-PST.REC CONJ Jack.PAT PAT.3S-born.STAT.LOC-PST.DIST
I saw the house where Jack was born.

The shorter forms would be more common/informal.

suelior
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:32 pm
Location: S.Korea

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by suelior »

Hi I was just looking through the stuff and thought you might want to know how Korean language handle this kind of clauses.
I guess it could be slightly off-topic, since Korean doesn't have any relative pronouns or such, but wouldn't it be nice to know how some natlangs work this kind of clauses without them?
So, here we go, and sorry ahead for the poor pronounciation representations you are going to see. I really have no idea how to write it right.


Korean

나는 잭이 지은 집을 보았다.
/na-neun dzag-i dzi-eun dzib-eul po-ad-da/
1SG-NOM Jack-NOM build-PERF.ADJ house-ACC see-PERF-END
I saw the house that jack built.

나는 잭이 저 집을 지었다는 것을 안다.
/na-neun dzag-i dzeo dzib-eul dzi-eod-da-neun geos-eul an-da/
1SG-NOM Jack-NOM that house-ACC build-PERF-QUOTE.ADJ BN(bound noun)-ACC know-PRES-END
I know that Jack built that house.

나는 잭이 태어난 집을 보았다.
/na-neun dzag-i t(h)ae-eo-nan dzib-eul po-ad-da/
1SG-NOM Jack-NOM born-PERF.ADJ house-ACC see-PERF-END
I saw the house where Jack was born.

나는 네가 안다는 것을 안다.
/na-neun ne-ga an-da-neun keos-eul an-da/
1SG-NOM 2SG-NOM know-PRES-QUOTE.ADJ BD-ACC know-PRES-END
I know that you know.

나는 네가 아는 것을 안다.
/na-neun ne-ga a-neun keos-eul an-da/
1SG-NOM 2SG-NOM know-PRES.ADJ BD-ACC know-PRES-END
I know that you know or I know that which you know. It depends on the context

Korean language has means of turning pretty much everything into adjectives, even a whole sentence. So what we do is we turn the clause into an adjective, and make it modify the noun that in English would be modified by a relative clause.
For example, in the sentence 'I saw the house that jack built', the clause 'jack built' becomes adjective that modifies 'the house'.
In the sentence 'I know that you know,' 'that you know' doesn't have any noun it modifies. So we use a bound-noun. We also can use a noun, '사실'-'the fact,' for instance in this case, to clarify the meaning. But since normally the context tells us what it means, we usually stick to the bound-noun.

So, I thought, if your conlang is into nominalization or adjectivization, you don't really need a relative pronoun. Just nominalization is enough on its own.
Last edited by suelior on Sat Oct 22, 2011 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ollock
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 523
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 3:04 pm
Contact:

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Ollock »

Hmm, I had heard that Korean grammar was quite similar to Japanese. It seems that relative clauses work somewhat the same way.

I was going to do Aeruyo, but it's going to take new words and some figuring out structure on #3, so here's another natlang: Mandarin Chinese

我看见了夹克建立的房子。
wo3 kan4jian4 le jia1ke4 jian4li4 de fang2zi
1 see PRF Jack build REL house
I saw the house that jack built.

我知道夹克建立了那套房子。
wo3 zhi1dao4 jia1ke4 jian4li4 le na4 tao4 fang2zi
1 know Jack build PRF that MW house
I know that Jack built that house.

我看见了夹克出生里的房子。
wo1 kan4jian4 le jia1ke4 chu1sheng1 li3 de fang2zi
1 see PRF Jack be.born in REL house
I saw the house where Jack was born.

我知道你知道。
wo3 zhi1dao4 ni3 zhi1dao4
1 know 2 know
I know that you know.

I almost glossed 的 (de) as GEN, as it is also used for possession, but it really doesn't work that way, and here it is definitely a relativizer. I also love that Chinese complement clauses essentially take no marking, which is especially fun for 我知道你知道 "I know (that) you know."
George Corley
Producer and Moderating Host, Conlangery Podcast

User avatar
Ser
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1542
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:55 am
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia / Colombie Britannique, Canada

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Ser »

Ollock wrote:Hmm, I had heard that Korean grammar was quite similar to Japanese. It seems that relative clauses work somewhat the same way.

I was going to do Aeruyo, but it's going to take new words and some figuring out structure on #3, so here's another natlang: Mandarin Chinese

我看见了夹克建立的房子。
wo3 kan4jian4 le jia1ke4 jian4li4 de fang2zi
1 see PRF Jack build REL house
I saw the house that jack built.

我知道夹克建立了那套房子。
wo3 zhi1dao4 jia1ke4 jian4li4 le na4 tao4 fang2zi
1 know Jack build PRF that MW house
I know that Jack built that house.

我看见了夹克出生里的房子。
wo1 kan4jian4 le jia1ke4 chu1sheng1 li3 de fang2zi
1 see PRF Jack be.born in REL house
I saw the house where Jack was born.

我知道你知道。
wo3 zhi1dao4 ni3 zhi1dao4
1 know 2 know
I know that you know.

I almost glossed 的 (de) as GEN, as it is also used for possession, but it really doesn't work that way, and here it is definitely a relativizer. I also love that Chinese complement clauses essentially take no marking, which is especially fun for 我知道你知道 "I know (that) you know."
Except that treskro3 had already done Madarin in page 2. :wink: =p

User avatar
treskro
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 306
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:33 pm
Location: オデュッセウスの家

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by treskro »

Serafín wrote:Except that treskro3 had already done Madarin in page 2. :wink: =p
Wait, where did the '3' come from? Do you know me from somewhere else?
axhiuk.

看蝦米

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by finlay »

Didn't your username use to have a 3 in it?

User avatar
treskro
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 306
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:33 pm
Location: オデュッセウスの家

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by treskro »

Yeah, but I got rid of it a while ago...I guess you people don't forget things easily..
axhiuk.

看蝦米

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by finlay »

It's more likely that Renaçido hasn't actually read your username in a while.

(but yeah, we tend to use and refer to people by their old usernames, or the username under which they become most 'known'... hence "Marion Blancard" is referred to as geoff or bricka, and Xephyr is often referred to as Cev, short for Cevlakohn, which is a username he hasn't used on here since about 2004 or 5 – although I think he still uses that on IRC – but Lyhoko Leaci isn't referred to by his older username because nobody really remembers him from "back then")

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by finlay »

suelior wrote: So, here we go, and sorry ahead for the poor pronounciation representations you are going to see. I really have know idea how to write it right.
Look on wikipedia for the IPA. Also, linguoboy is the only other person I've seen on here who's written anything in Korean and he tends to use the Yale romanization in his transcriptions, which I believe is the one most commonly used by linguists because it preserves the morphemic Hangul orthography better than the other systems.

As far as I can tell, using that would make your first line become
나는 잭이 지은 집을 보았다.
/na-nun cak-i ci-un cip-ul po-ass-ta/

However, I think vowel length is ideally also written in this romanization, and it isn't written in Hangul – but I don't think it's pronounced in the Seoul dialect either so... *shrug*

Ollock
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 523
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 3:04 pm
Contact:

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Ollock »

treskro wrote:
Serafín wrote:Except that treskro3 had already done Madarin in page 2. :wink: =p
Wait, where did the '3' come from? Do you know me from somewhere else?
DAMN IT! Well, I didn't want to do Spanish as it's almost exactly the same as English, and I can't do any other natlangs off the top of my head like that. I guess I have to do Aeruyo.
George Corley
Producer and Moderating Host, Conlangery Podcast

Mr. Z
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 430
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Mr. Z »

Hebrew handles both types the same, like in English. Hebrew uses the relativizing prefix ש she-, which derives from the word אשר asher, originally having a spatial meaning, AKAIK, and cognate with the word אתר, "site" (which is a loanword from Aramaic):

ראיתי את הבית שבנה ג'ק.
ra'i-ti et ha-bait she-bana jeck.
see.PST-1S ACC DEF-house REL-build.PST.3S Jack.
I saw the house that jack built.

אני יודע שג'ק בנה את הבית הזה.
ani yode'a she-jeck bana et ha-bait ha-ze.
1S know.PRS.MASC.SNG REL-Jack build.PST.3S ACC DEF-house DEF-DMN.SNG
I know that Jack built that house.

ראיתי את הבית בו נולד ג'ק.
ra'i-ti et ha-bait bo nolad jeck.
see.PST-1S ACC DEF-house in.3S born.PAS.3S jeck.
I saw the house where Jack was born.

This one is exceptional there is no relativizer; I assume this is due to historical circumstances concerning the development of this type of sentence and the overlapping usage of the relativizer. It is also possible to form this sentence with the relativizer ש she- before the word בו bo-; that form is less formal.

אני יודע שאתה יודע.
ani yode'a she-'ata yode'a.
1S know.PRS.MASC.SNG REL-2S know.PRS.MASC.SNG.
I know that you know.

I might add my conlang, Athonian, later, but I've gotta go now.
Přemysl wrote:
Kereb wrote:they are nerdissimus inter nerdes
Oh god, we truly are nerdy. My first instinct was "why didn't he just use sunt and have it all in Latin?".
Languages I speak fluently
English, עברית

Languages I am studying
العربية, 日本語

Conlangs
Athonian

suelior
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:32 pm
Location: S.Korea

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by suelior »

finlay wrote:
suelior wrote: So, here we go, and sorry ahead for the poor pronounciation representations you are going to see. I really have know idea how to write it right.
Look on wikipedia for the IPA. Also, linguoboy is the only other person I've seen on here who's written anything in Korean and he tends to use the Yale romanization in his transcriptions, which I believe is the one most commonly used by linguists because it preserves the morphemic Hangul orthography better than the other systems.

As far as I can tell, using that would make your first line become
나는 잭이 지은 집을 보았다.
/na-nun cak-i ci-un cip-ul po-ass-ta/

However, I think vowel length is ideally also written in this romanization, and it isn't written in Hangul – but I don't think it's pronounced in the Seoul dialect either so... *shrug*

Well, I tried to learn the IPA symbols, but there were just too many characters for me and I was too lazy to do the rersearch. Not to mention, I can't write the IPA symbols with my phone, which I usually use to serf the net, so.. oh, well.
As for the Yale romanization, I can see how it preserves the original hangul structure. Just that when I try to read it, it sounds weird (For example ㅆ as ss at the end of a syllable is just too weird for me) I don't see how it became a good way to represent how it's pronounced, but I agree that it pretty much preserves all the informations in the hangul script, where my method failed miserably. So maybe I should use this method when representing some morphological features.

As for the vowel length, I think it's extinct. I have never met someone who use it. (I don't know..., maybe in north Korea they might still use it?) So I think the Yale romanization can pretty much save all the morphological info even without the vowel length thing. Thanks for the info

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by finlay »

AFAIK, it's used mainly by linguists because it preserves the morphemic structure of Hangul, and by pretty much no-one else. It's not meant to be a good way of representing how it's pronounced.

If you can't input IPA characters on your phone, look up X-SAMPA, which is an equivalent that uses only basic ASCII characters. Some people on here still use it, and most of us understand it.

Use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_Korean as your starting point. That way you don't have to learn the whole IPA if you just want to write pronunciation guides to Korean. We tend to recommend that you learn the rest of the IPA for conlanging purposes, though.

The following are the X-SAMPA equivalents for the IPA symbols not in your standard 26 Roman letters:
ɕ → s\
dʑ → dz\
kʰ → k_h
ŋ → N
pʰ → p_h
ɾ → 4 (but I would write r because there is no contrast between the two)
tʰ → t_h
tɕ → ts\
tɕʰ → ts\_h
ɛ → E
ʌ → V
ɯ → M
ɰi → M\i
əː → @:
ː → : (long vowel, not used in Seoul)
´ → _H (high tone vowel, not used in Seoul)

The character they use for the "tense" consonants isn't a standard IPA character, but that's because a lot of people aren't sure what it is. In X-SAMPA I would use [p*], [t*], etc.

Also, are you Korean, or are you just in Seoul?

el flokratisson
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2011 6:48 am

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by el flokratisson »

I think in "Flokrati" the syntax is similar to romanic languages or english:

Sirtidö evalòn vür Jack cromàridör.
I+saw house+the that Jack built
I saw the house that Jack built.

Bräli gi Jack cromàridör vür evà.
I+know that Jack built that house
I know that Jack built that house.

Sirtidö evalòn, vür rin Jack dhösjàmidör.
I+saw house+the, that in Jack was+born
I saw the house where Jack was born.

8)

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by finlay »

Not quite, especially in the third one, although you seem to use 'that' for a demonstrative and a relative pronoun, which I'd say is very Englishy.

Also you might want to look up glossing rules... your verbs at the end seem to end in idör, which I'm going to guess is a past morpheme of some description, so we would normally write it in the gloss as that specifically (eg build-PAST rather than built)

suelior
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:32 pm
Location: S.Korea

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by suelior »

X-SAMPA seems nice, although some of the IPA symbols come out as a square on the phone, so I'll have to wait till I get on the computer to see what represents what. Apparently the phone makers didn't think it practical to include IPA symbols in the font. Guess I'll have to live with it.
finlay wrote: Also, are you Korean, or are you just in Seoul?
I am a Korean. So you might going to see some awkward article usages or numeric errors in my posts. One of the shortcomings of having a language that doesn't care much about numbers or articles as a mother tongue.

Mr. Z
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 430
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Mr. Z »

suelior wrote: Apparently the phone makers didn't think it practical to include IPA symbols in the font. Guess I'll have to live with it.
Gee, I wonder why. :?
Přemysl wrote:
Kereb wrote:they are nerdissimus inter nerdes
Oh god, we truly are nerdy. My first instinct was "why didn't he just use sunt and have it all in Latin?".
Languages I speak fluently
English, עברית

Languages I am studying
العربية, 日本語

Conlangs
Athonian

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Post by finlay »

suelior wrote: I am a Korean. So you might going to see some awkward article usages or numeric errors in my posts. One of the shortcomings of having a language that doesn't care much about numbers or articles as a mother tongue.
Your article and number usage[uncountable] seems fine to me, but your tense/modal construction there is unnatural. I'm not sure how I'd rephrase it grammatically; perhaps "you'll maybe see" or "you might see" (here is one of the places where English demonstrably has past/nonpast rather than past/present/future).

User avatar
Lyhoko Leaci
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 716
Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Not Mariya's road network, thankfully.

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Lyhoko Leaci »

finlay wrote:It's more likely that Renaçido hasn't actually read your username in a while.

(but yeah, we tend to use and refer to people by their old usernames, or the username under which they become most 'known'... hence "Marion Blancard" is referred to as geoff or bricka, and Xephyr is often referred to as Cev, short for Cevlakohn, which is a username he hasn't used on here since about 2004 or 5 – although I think he still uses that on IRC – but Lyhoko Leaci isn't referred to by his older username because nobody really remembers him from "back then")
Which is a good thing, as people would often shorten it to just the first word, and the first word in both of my previous usernames was a translation of "the."
Zain pazitovcor, sio? Sio, tovcor.
You can't read that, right? Yes, it says that.
Shinali Sishi wrote:"Have I spoken unclearly? I meant electric catfish not electric onions."

User avatar
Ser
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1542
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:55 am
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia / Colombie Britannique, Canada

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Ser »

treskro wrote:Yeah, but I got rid of it a while ago...I guess you people don't forget things easily..
What finlay said, I hadn't even noticed you don't use it anymore. Another thing is that I also pronounce the ‹3›: [tɾeskɾoʕ] (3 in a word is [ʕ] for students of Arabic).
suelior wrote:I am a Korean. So you might going to see some awkward article usages or numeric errors in my posts. One of the shortcomings of having a language that doesn't care much about numbers or articles as a mother tongue.
How would Korean give you problems with English numbers?

User avatar
Lyhoko Leaci
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 716
Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Not Mariya's road network, thankfully.

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Lyhoko Leaci »

Serafín wrote:
treskro wrote:Yeah, but I got rid of it a while ago...I guess you people don't forget things easily..
What finlay said, I hadn't even noticed you don't use it anymore. Another thing is that I also pronounce the ‹3›: [tɾeskɾoʕ] (3 in a word is [ʕ] for students of Arabic).
I don't even remember you (Treskro) having that 3 there to begin with...
Serafín wrote:
suelior wrote:I am a Korean. So you might going to see some awkward article usages or numeric errors in my posts. One of the shortcomings of having a language that doesn't care much about numbers or articles as a mother tongue.
How would Korean give you problems with English numbers?
Number = Plural forms in this case, presumably.
Zain pazitovcor, sio? Sio, tovcor.
You can't read that, right? Yes, it says that.
Shinali Sishi wrote:"Have I spoken unclearly? I meant electric catfish not electric onions."

User avatar
Ser
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1542
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:55 am
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia / Colombie Britannique, Canada

Re: TC: Relative and complementizer clauses

Post by Ser »

Lyhoko Leaci wrote:
Serafín wrote:
treskro wrote:Yeah, but I got rid of it a while ago...I guess you people don't forget things easily..
What finlay said, I hadn't even noticed you don't use it anymore. Another thing is that I also pronounce the ‹3›: [tɾeskɾoʕ] (3 in a word is [ʕ] for students of Arabic).
I don't even remember you (Treskro) having that 3 there to begin with...
Here's a post where you called him so:

http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php? ... o3#p836873

Post Reply