Re: Nested preposed relatives (Was: Re: Allnoun)

[Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>]

la xorxes cusku di'e

> Date:         Sat, 13 Aug 1994 14:01:16 EDT
> From:         Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Nested preposed relatives (Was: Re: Allnoun)

> la veion cusku di'e

> > In Finnish we would
> > use a word order similar to lojbab's tanru in a situation like this where
> > the subject and predicate would otherwise be separated by a lot of
> > noise.
>
> It's not just the word order. If you add other information the word order
> is not so crucial.

  The point I was trying to make was, that given a long chain of postposed
  relative clauses, it is quite easy to loose track of the subject at the
  head by the time you arrive at the predicate.

> >     Hiiren pyydystanytta kissaa ajava koira    on musta
> >  le smacu  kavbu         mlatu  jersi gerku cu xekri
> >
> > The structure in Finnish is readily understandable and generally
> > used (with practically NO nesting limit).
>
> But in Finnish you do have the noun-verb-noun-verb-noun iteration to guide
 you,
> which is not there in a Lojban tanru. (Assuming pyydystanytta and ajava are
> verb forms, am I right?)  Maybe a five element tanru can be understood, given
> that some gismu are more verbish and some are more nounish, but for very
> long tanru, I doubt it can be done.

  I agree. This is just one aspect of the tanru ambiguity.

> Just out of curiosity, how would you say in Finnish "The mouse-catching,
> cat-chasing dog is black"?

  Hiiria pyydystava, kissoja ajava koira on musta.

  (A change here is that in Finnish we have {hiiria/kissoja} in plural
  unless we have a specific mouse/cat in mind in which case we would
  have {hiirta/kissaa}. The case+verb form combination indicates that
  the dog is either in the process of catching/chasing  or does the
  thing customarily. It is also possible to indicate that the act is
  completed, but the situation is more complex depending on whether
  the chase/catching just ended or whether it reached a given end
  state/was successful - the difference is indicated using a different
  case for the cat/mouse:

             kissaa ajanut koira
             the dog that chased the cat

             kissan puuhun ajanut koira
             the dog that chased the cat to the tree

             hiirta pyydystanyt koira
             the dog that was catching(trying to catch) the mouse

             hiiren pyydystanyt koira
             the dog that caught the mouse

  (This is one of the blessings/curses of a language with 15 cases
   and numerous nominal verb forms. When you master the intricacies
   you miss a similar apparatus in other languages but if you have
   to learn it starting from nil...)

> A simple change to the
> grammar would help a lot in this situation. One ought to be able to
> say just something like
>
> (7) *le xoi le smacu pu kavbu ku'o mlatu cu jersi xu'o gerku

> > sumti_tail = [sumti_5 [relative_clauses]] sumti_tail_1
> >              | relative_clauses sumti_tail_1
> >             *| XOI sentence [KUhO# sentence]... XUhO# sumti_tail_1
>
> But {mlatu cu jersi} in your example is not a sentence. And if you
> change it to {le mlatu cu jersi} you no longer know which sumti is the
> head of the clause.

  It seems I made a mistake retyping the rules. The last line
  ought to read, of course:

              *| XOI sentence [KUhO# sumti_tail_1]... XUhO# sumti_tail_1

> Also, we'd need subindexed {ke'a}s to keep
> track of what is what. I think the whole thing would be much too
> complicated.

  No more complex than any other nested relatives - whether preposed
  or postposed. The only difference relative to the normal preposed
  relatives is the absorbtion of {poi [le poi]...} into a single XOI
  and the replacement of the final KUhO with XUhO.

> Jorge


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.i mi du la'o sy. Veijo Vilva sy.
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