Seuna relative clauses
The relative clause marker is ta. This corresponds to "that" or "who" in English.
SVO ....... or VSO when the S is indefinite.
The relative clause marker for the singular : "ta" in its different forms
ta
The dog that bit the man. => dog ta bit blas
The dog that bit a woman. => dog ta bit gla
tas
The man whom the dog bit. => man tas dog bit.
The man whom a dog bit. => man tas bit dog.
ta'u
The endtag u corresponds to English "by".
The hand that I hit with => hand ta'u I hit
tayo
The endtag yo corresponds to English "to" or "upto". It is used exactly as in English to indicate the receiver of a gift.
The family that we gave the dog to => family tayo we gave the dog
tafi
The endtag fi corresponds to English "at".
The hurdle at which I fell => hurdle taf I fell.
tage
The endtag ge corresponds to English "'s" or "of".
The man whose dog I killed => man tage dog I killed
tale
The endtag le corresponds to English "from".
The place that we come from => place tale we come
tawa
The endtag wa corresponds to English "towards". Also to English "about" as in "I think about you".
The person who we are all thinking about => person tawa we are all thinking.
taho
The endtag ho corresponds to English "with".
The woman that you went to market with => woman taho you went to market
The relative clause marker for the plural : "tan" in its different forms
When the head noun is plural tan must be used instead of ta. For example;-
The dogs that bit the man. => dogn tan bit blas
The various forms of tan with the endtags are tan tansa tanu tanyo tanfi tange tanle tanwa and tanho. Notice that an a has been added to tansa to make it fall within the allowed morphology of Seuna. Inspite of this it is allowed to pronounce tansa as tans. It is also allowed to pronounce tanfi as tanf.
"ta" followed by adjectives (a subset of "ta" + RC)
As it is allowed to drop the copula when it is deemed not to have any usefull information
meu ta ro hau ... => the cat that is black
mean the same as meu ta hau, hence NOUN+ta+ADJECTIVE is the same construction as NOUN+ta+RC.
???But in what situations would we use meu ta hau insted of meu hau ???
When we have 'ta instead of ta
Consider the three sentences below.
1) meu hau sleeps on the bed
2) meu ta hau sleeps on the bed
3) meu 'ta hau sleeps on the bed
In the second sentence the apostrophe represents a definite break in the flow of words. The Seuna writing system has symbols to represent breaks in the flow of words ... either for breathing or for emphasis. Usually when I write Seuna text with the Latin alphabet I do not bother to show these breaks. However I do in this case as it is important for the meaning of the text.
In the first sentence both the speaker and the hearer can identify the black cat.
In the third sentence, the hearer, beforehand, did not know that the cat was black, i.e. the fact that the cat was black is "new information".
The above that I have demonstrated with an adjective, is valid for RC's as well.
??The second sentence??
Index
- Introduction to Seuna
- Seuna : Chapter 1
- Seuna word shape
- The script of Seuna
- Seuna sentence structure
- Seuna pronouns
- Seuna nouns
- Seuna verbs (1)
- Seuna adjectives
- Seuna demonstratives
- Seuna verbs (2)
- Asking a question in Seuna
- Seuna relative clauses
- Seuna verbs (3)
- Methods for deriving words in Seuna
- List of all Seuna derivational affixes
- Numbers in Seuna
- Naming people in Seuna
- The Seuna calendar
- Seuna units
