6.1578, Sum: Turkish Relative Clauses

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-1578. Wed Nov 8 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  125
 
Subject: 6.1578, Sum: Turkish Relative Clauses
 
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---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 07 Nov 1995 16:05:58 EST
From:  AAGHBAR at grove.iup.edu (Ali Aghbar)
Subject:  Sum: Turkish
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 07 Nov 1995 16:05:58 EST
From:  AAGHBAR at grove.iup.edu (Ali Aghbar)
Subject:  Sum: Turkish
 
Here is a summary of responses to my enquiry about Turkish relative
clauses.  This is what I had said in my inquiry:
 
     From what I have been told, Turkish (as spoken in Turkey) does
     not seem to have an unreduced relative clause system.  The
     relative clause structures seem to be more like reduced
     relative clauses in English, as in:
 
          kedinin yakaladigi fare kucuktu.
          By cat  caught    mouse was-small.
          "The mouse that the cat caught was small."
 
          Fareyi    yakalyan kediyi gordum.
          The mouse catching cat    I-saw.
          I saw the cat that caught the mouse.
 
 
 
I will report the responses I have received in relation to the five
questions I had asked.  I am grateful to Cyrano de Babestherac,
Stavros Macrakis, and Jennifer L. Smith for their helpful
responses.
 
1. Is the judgement that Turkish does not have an unreduced
relative clause system valid?
     No direct response.
2. Is there a relativizer (such as the equivalent of THAT in Old
English) in Turkish?
     Someone mentioned that Turkish has borrowed [ki] from Persian
     and that it is only occasionally is used to form relative
     clauses.
3. Does Turkish use unreduced relative clauses under any
circumstances?
     See response under Q. 2.
4. Are there any good references on this topic?
     G.L. Lewis's Turkish Grammar
5. Are there other languages which behave like Turkish?
     I was told that both Japanese and Korean behave very much like
     Turkish.  Although whether these three languages belong to one
     family of languages (Altaic) is still an unresolved question,
     at least in this respect they are behaving in a similar way.
 
     Examples from Korean:
 
          koyangi-eh-geh chaphin chui chagatta
          Cat-    by caught  mouse  small-Past
 
          chui-lul   chapun koyangi-lul boatta
          mouse-OBJ  catching   cat-    OBJ see-Past
 
     Examples from Japanese:
 
          Neko-ga tukamae-ta nezumi-wa   tiisa-katta.
          cat-NOM catch-PAST mouse-TOPIC small-PAST
          '[The] cat-caught mouse was small.'
 
          Nezumi-o tukamae-ru neko-o  mi-ta.
          mouse-ACC catch-NONPAST cat-ACC see-PAST
          '[I] saw [the] mouse-catching cat.' = 'I saw the cat that
                    catches mice.'
 
     The responder adds:
 
          However, I remember that when I was studying Japanese, my
          class read a passage that contained _tokoro-no_ 'place-
          GENITIVE' used as a relative  pronoun.  My teacher, a
          native speaker very knowledgeable about  literature in
          both Japanese and English, told us that this relative
          pronoun was _invented_ in the late 19th century when many
          Western  documents, etc., were translated into Japanese
          and the translators felt  it necessary to "translate"
          relative pronouns.  According to my teacher,  relative
          clauses with _tokoro-no_ are identical in meaning to
          sentences  without, but I suspect there is a register
          difference.  The _tokoro-no_  construction may be limited
          to written styles, but I'm not sure about that.
 
          So a sentence with _tokoro-no_ would probably look
          something like:
 
          kokusai-kooryuu-o  fuyasu   tokoro-no  seisaku
          international-exchange-ACC increase "REL PRON" policy
          'a policy which (will?) increase international exchange'
 
This is all.  Please write to me if you have further information.
If I get significant responses, i will do a follow-up summary.
 
Regards,
 
Ali
 ==============================================================================
=
  Ali-Asghar Aghbar, Dept. of English, Indiana U. of PA, Indiana, PA 15705
 Bitnet: aaghbar at iup   Internet: aaghbar at grove.iup.edu  Phone: 412-357 2262
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