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Subclause Reform: Difference between revisions
Discuss some remaining issues with the proposal
(Simplify relative content clauses) |
(Discuss some remaining issues with the proposal) |
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{{Example|Feq jí, ꝡá za ruqshua râo ní nuaq ía.|I sense that it's going to rain tonight.}} | {{Example|Feq jí, ꝡá za ruqshua râo ní nuaq ía.|I sense that it's going to rain tonight.}} | ||
This dummy argument {{T|ía}} corresponds to the 'it' in the English translation; it doesn't refer to anything, but is necessary for the sentence to be grammatical. | This dummy argument {{T|ía}} corresponds to the 'it' in the English translation; it doesn't refer to anything, but is necessary for the sentence to be grammatical. | ||
== Unresolved issues == | |||
This proposal isn't perfect. In particular, relative content clauses are subject to some of the same ambiguity as relative clauses: | |||
{{Example|Póq po kúe, ꝡë zao súq hóa}}{{Example|Júna po sío, ꝡä hao ráı}} | |||
These clauses could conceivably attach to either the DP outside the predicatizer, or the DP inside the predicatizer. Fundamentally, predicatizers and object incorporation both create verb forms in which multiple 𝘯Ps "pile up" at the right edge, which makes 𝘯P adjunction problematic. | |||
But relative content clauses also create a new case of ambiguity: | |||
{{Example|Aojaı póq, ꝡë cho hó sío, ꝡä hao ráı, ꝡä luq tú.}} | |||
We could bracket this as either {{T|Aojaı póq, ꝡë [cho hó sío, ꝡä hao ráı], ꝡä luq tú}} or {{T|Aojaı póq, ꝡë [cho hó sío], ꝡä hao ráı, ꝡä luq tú}}. The problem here is that content clauses look the same no matter whether they're used as relatives or as verbal arguments. One way to fix this is to say that {{T|có}} may never be covert: | |||
{{Example|Aojaı póq, ꝡë cho hó sío, ꝡä hao ráı, có, ꝡä luq tú.}} | |||
However, it's perhaps a bit cumbersome to say {{T|có, ꝡä}} or {{T|có, lä}} all the time. Admittedly, serial verbs and {{T|ꝡá}} might be able to make up for the verbosity of {{T|có}}. But I'm hopeful that a solution to the 𝘯P adjunction problem might fix this ambiguity at the same time, so for now I'm leaving it unresolved. | |||