I have recently relaunched Trurian, my first conlang (the first sketch dates to around 10 years ago). It’s a really pleasant feeling to be working on something fresh, and it’s also somewhat easier than my High Eolic work – both due to its already sizable vocabulary (2000+ entries) and since much of the grammatical legwork (especially basic morphology) is already present, which gives me more time to concentrate on the interesting stuff, such as syntax and pragmatics.<\/p>\n
One feature which I’ve decided to revamp considerably from previous incarnations of the language is the way relative clauses are handled. In a burst of inspiration, I’ve decided to make them internally headed<\/em>: this means that the head of the relative clause only occurs within the clause itself<\/em>. The clause is marked by a relativizer. If the clause acts in the role of a subject of a sentence, the relativizer is ner<\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n ner <\/strong>Aenith woni ilnerono<\/span> larne\u00c3\u00ad Notice how the relativizer marks the beginning of the relative clause (underlined), whereas the matrix clause (including the verb – Trurian is a verb-final language) follows. The relativized noun, won <\/em>‘man’, is only present within the relative clause itself – <\/em>unlike in (for example) English, where it exists as a head outside of the relative clause (the man<\/strong> that<\/span>…<\/em>), <\/em>and again as a gap within the relative clause (that Aennith killed [0]…<\/span>).<\/em><\/p>\n What happens when the role of the relativized noun in the matrix clause is something other than subject?<\/em> Well, the relativizer ner <\/em>also inflects for case, and its different case forms vary precisely for the role of the entity referred to in the matrix clause. <\/em>So, for example, if you want to say I had met the man that Aenith killed<\/em> – which would put ‘the man’ into the accusative<\/em> case of the matrix clause in the case system of Trurian – the appropriate relativizer is no longer ner<\/em>, but rather ni <\/em><\/strong>(which I gloss as REL.ACC):<\/p>\n elrer <\/em>ni <\/em><\/strong>Aenith woni ilnerono<\/span> in emeyon The form of the relativizer is independent of the role of the relativized noun within the relative clause. If you want to say I met the man that killed my father<\/em>, the relativizer is still ni<\/em>:<\/p>\n ni <\/em><\/strong>won in-idhoni ilnerono<\/span> in emeyon Along with the accusative, Trurian has three other noun cases: the genitive, the dative, and the ablative. The relevant relativizer forms for the role of the relativized noun in the matrix clause are nel <\/em><\/strong>(for the genitive), neth<\/em><\/strong> (for the dative), and ana <\/em><\/strong>(for the ablative), as you can see in the examples below:<\/p>\n nel <\/em><\/strong>Aenith woni ilnerono<\/span> fes l\u00c3\u00a4rthe\u00c3\u00ads neth <\/em><\/strong>Aenith woni ilnerono<\/span> wechebi entayon<\/em> feser ana <\/strong>Aenith woni ilnerono<\/span> yon\u00c3\u00a9th<\/em> Finally, there is an issue that I still haven’t managed to resolve fully satisfactorily, namely: how do speakers “know” which constituent within the relative clause is the relativized noun? With the examples above, it’s pretty simple to figure this out, since the non-relativized constituents are very well-known\/specific (Aenith, my father<\/em>) and thus unlikely to be modified by a relative clause in any case. I’m quite prepared to put it all down to pragmatics and possible ambiguity, but maybe there’s some way around the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have recently relaunched Trurian, my first conlang (the first sketch dates to around 10 years ago). It’s a really pleasant feeling to be working on something fresh, and it’s also somewhat easier than my High Eolic work – both … Continue reading
\n<\/em>REL Aenith man.ACC kill.NONPAUS dangerous<\/small>
\n“The man that Aenith killed [was] dangerous.”<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>earlier REL.ACC Aenith man.ACC kill.NONPAUS I meet.PAUS<\/small>
\n“I had met the man that Aenith killed.”<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/em>REL.ACC man my-father.ACC kill.NONPAUS I meet.PAUS<\/small>
\n“I met the man that killed my father.”<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>REL.GEN Aenith man.ACC kill.NONPAUS house big.FEM<\/small>
\n“The house of the man that Aenith killed is big.”<\/p>\n
\nREL.DAT Aenith man.ACC kill.NONPAUS money.ACC take.PAUS<\/small>
\n“Aenith took money from the man that he killed.”<\/p>\n
\nhouse.ADV REL.ABL Aenith man.ACC kill.NONPAUS live.3.MASC.SING.PAUS<\/small>
\n“Aenith [now] lives in the house of the man that he killed.”<\/p>\n