Standardizing relativization in Dinka (and other languages?)

[john at research.haifa.ac.il]

That's right, Mike. There are things which are like relative clauses, but
they're really inefficient in terms of reading because either they look
like main clauses (until you get to the end and realize that you've misparsed
it) or else are headed by markers which have a really wide variety of other
functions (which also leads to misparsing).
John



Quoting Mike Cahill <mike_cahill at sil.org>:

> Brian,
>
> It sounds like you're proposing the creation of relative clauses in Dinka
> because they don't have any? I don't think that was what John's original
> question assumed.
>
> Mike
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu
> [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Brian MacWhinney
> Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 11:44 AM
> To: john at research.haifa.ac.il; Funknet
> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Standardizing relativization in Dinka (and other
> languages?)
>
> John,
>
>       There are lots of possibilities that one could imagine.  One could
> simply have preposed relatives with no markers at all as in Japanese.  Or one
> could create a relativizer from currently existing deictics.  Or one could
> create adjectival relatives with case markers.  And so on.  But determining
> which of these various options makes sense for Dinka would depend heavily on
> what resources Dinka has and how it structures sentences.  For starters, if
> they have case markers, that is going to help a lot.
>      Looking at the features of Dinka, can you specify some other languages
> that are relatively close in some of these features and which have already
> developed relatives?  Perhaps that wouid give you the best hint about how to
> go.  Even more ideally, if you could trace the historical development of
> relatives in those languages,  you may get further clues.
>    The problem you pose raises a related question for readers of FunkNet.
> Does anyone know of languages that have created relativizers or relative
> structures as a part of over language innovation projects in the last century
> or so?  Understanding how that was done would also be illuminating.
>
> -- Brian MacWhinney
>
> On Dec 11, 2011, at 11:14 AM, john at research.haifa.ac.il wrote:
>
> > They do have texts. In fact what I'm saying is based on their Bible
> translation.
> > I'm working with a group of Dinka (the Dinka Language Development
> > Association) to try to improve their writing system so that it can be
> > used for all written functions (education through university level,
> > government, law, etc.). It seems clear to me that this is going to
> > require figuring out some relatively efficient way to do relative
> > clauses. Or do you know of any languages which are used for all written
> functions which DON'T have relative clauses? I don't.
> > John
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting Angus Grieve-Smith <grvsmth at panix.com>:
> >
> >>     Yes, I agree with Mike.  Relative clauses may exist in English
> >> and biblical Greek, but they don't exist in every language.  A
> >> consistent strategy for translating something does not require
> >> changing the grammar of the target language.
> >>
> >>     If the Dinka speakers don't have texts, you need to just listen
> >> to them.  Relative clauses are just a way to identify a thing based
> >> on the activity or state it's involved in.  How do they do that
> spontaneously?
> >> If they do it differently from the way we do, or from the way the
> >> Evangelists did, maybe their way is better.
> >>
> >> --
> >> 				-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
> >> 				grvsmth at panix.com
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > -- This message was sent using IMP, the Webmail Program of Haifa
> > University
> >
>
>
>
>
>




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