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--- In ceqli@yahoogroups.com, MorphemeAddict@... wrote: > > In a message dated 8/22/2007 7:50:02 AM Central Daylight Time, rmay@... > writes: > > > > > > to jino hu padey kom to karn dodey kom pan. > > > > The man who ate the meat yesterday today eats bread. > > > > > > > > > > And since I borrowed 'hu' from English, it _looks_ like a relative > > pronoun > > > > but isn't. > > > > > > > > > > Could you add translations for your examples? And also give an example of > > > "sa"? > > > > > > > Sure. Sorry. I've added it above. And to explain hu and sa further, Sa > > works like Mandarin > > 'de,' in that it signals that the phrase before it modifies the word after > > it. So you'd have: > > > > to padey kom to karn sa jino dodey kom pan. > > > > And hu works the opposite way, moving the modifying phrase after the > > modified word. > > Sometimes using hu makes things clearer than sa. > > > > Do "hu" and "sa" work as well for objects of the secondary clause? How about > as other roles in that clause? Are these right? > > The meat the man saw yesterday he ate today. > (or more naturally: the man ate the meat he saw yesterday today) > > to karn hu to jino padey saw he dodey kom. Sure. Filling in the words: to karn hu to jino padey xaw da dodey kom. > > to padey to jino saw sa karn he dodey kom. to padey to jino xaw sa karn da dodey kom. In both cases, you could use 'jeu' as the pronoun instead of 'da'. "jeu" refers to the last noun that begins with "j". You'd use "keu" to refer to "karn," etc. And for super-precision, you can close the hu 'parenthesis' with behu, and open the sa 'parenthesis' with besa. to karn hu to jino padey xaw behu da dodey kom. to besa padey to jino xaw sa karn da dodey kom. ciba bi to hon hu go ko to jino pa don. This is the book I gave to the man. I'm currently wondering about this construction: ciba bi to jino hu go pa don to hon ko. This is the man I gave to book to. It feels to 'Englishy,' somehow, but I can't see any ambiguity. > > I prefer having a pronoun to fill the gap in sentences like this, but English > doesn't use one, and most European languages don't either. It would have to be, I think, a special 'filler' pronoun that isn't used for anything else, and it might be a handy thing to have to cut down ambiguity. That might be a good role for 'ce,' sort of a parallel with 'co.' ciba bi to jino hu ko ce go pa don to hon. And it would be optional, of course, but available when sentences get very complex. ciba bi to stol hu sur ce go tari to hon. This is the table I found the book on. It would especially be useful when the referent isn't the subject or direct object of the main verb.