Restrictive relative clauses

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janKipo
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Restrictive relative clauses

Post by janKipo »

"The man who came to dinner stayed" (I think the modern rule -- i.e., since I was in High School -- is "the man that came to dinner") shows an example of a restrictive relative clause, "who came to dinner", not set off by commas. It is a relative clause because of the "who" which serves as subject of the clause and yet connects it to the earlier "the man". It is restrictive because it is a part of the specification of which man it is we are talking about, rather than adding information about an already identified man. It contrasts with a non-restrictive relative clause, as in "The man, who came to dinner, stayed", where it is assumed that we already know who the man is and are just adding more information. It is, then, factually -- if not rhetorically -- interchangeable with "The man, who stayed, came to dinner", while a similar shift would not work in the first case, since "the man who stayed" might very well be someone other than the man who came to dinner in terms of identification.

In English, the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive is the commas -- and a different voice pattern, we hope. In Logic, the difference is more marked: the relative clause in the restrictive case is part of the description, "the x (x Man & x came to dinner) stayed". while the non-restrictive cases is merely a parallel sentence or predicate: "The x(x Man ) stayed & the x(x Man ) came to dinner" (or, in collapsed form, "The x (x Man )(stayed & came to dinner)"). In tp there need be no distinction at all: 'jan li kama tawa moku li awen' or, in an effort to make the distinction, 'jan li kama tawa moku; jan ni [or 'ona'] li awen'. The 'jan ni' form is closer to restrictive, the 'ona' to the non-restrictive, but neither is clearly one or the other. It does seem, however, that this distinction is made, somehow, in every language and is important (for us Montagovian, if no one else). Another version is also possible: 'jan ni li awen: jan/ona li kama tawa moku', which feels closer to the restrictive ideal, even if the restriction is mentioned later. Indeed, at one point, when 'pu' was still an hypothetical word said to be some sort of punctuation, it was suggested that it step in here for the connection in this case and other 'ni' -':' connections (the only obviously missing punctuation in tp). The positioning of 'pu' elsewhere stpped this line of thought, which still, in this case, was rather unsatisfactory, since the restriction is remote and perhaps misplaced.

And, besides, the restriction is a property of the thing in question, so ought to go into the modifier chain somewhere (close, in the speciation position, not just in the property slots, ideally). So, that gives 'jan pi kama moku [or kama pi tawa moku' to avoid the potential food reading] li awen' . But what if the property involved does not take our target as subject "The man that I saw yesterday is injured". 'mi lukin e jan ni lon tenpo suno pini; ona li pakala', etc. but (tp has no passives) nothing in the modifier string directly.

Stephan Schneider, pursuing his program of learning tp by trying to do everything a totally different way, hit upon the notion that, since PPs, which are also sometimes VPs, could be inserted into modifier strings with just a 'pi', why couldn't other VPs, so 'jan pi kama tawa moku li awen' That didn't present a problem, but something like "The man who ate the cow died" 'jan pi miku e soweli li kama moli.", went against a rule we had been enforcing against others who had tried this more or less accidentally: "'e' can't occur in a noun phrase" or something like that.
sonja stepped in at this point and suggested the possibility that a predicate could occur in NP and so the 'e' would be justified as in the predicate. but that meant that the line would have to be 'jan pi li moku e soweli li kama moli.' This does trick the eye used to finding the 'li' and dividing the sentence at that point, but it does not otherwise screw up the grammar (as the 'pi PP' cases show). Unfortunately, it does not go much further than this, since getting the subject of the inserted predicate into the modifier string does break the patterns too much: 'jan pi mi li lukin e ona li kama', burns out the parser circuits, however modified in ways so far conceived. As long as the target object is subject of the predicate we could (this is not yet a permission and certainly not a recommendation) insert the predicate into the modifier string (what happens to the other modifiers we leave to later investigation). But if the expression is an object of any sort, DO or OP, this approach cannot be used and we are left -- until someone cleverer comes along -- with the two sentence solution and a feeling of dis-ease.
Last edited by janKipo on Fri Dec 18, 2015 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
janSepo
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Re: Restrictive relative clauses

Post by janSepo »

Toki! Two unrelated "li" are confusing when the first "li" belongs to a subordinate clause.

- *"jan pi li moku e soweli li kama moli."

In this example the first "li" belongs to a relative clause. When the relative clause describes not the subject but the object of the main clause, there shouldn't be any confusion:

- "jan pona mi li sona e jan pi ona li moku e soweli".

The second "li" of the relative clause is introduced after the first "li" has already been placed in the main clause, and we're safe to parse the sentence: "My friend knows the man that ate beef." In order to use a relative clause describing the subject (i.e. before the main clause's "li"), we need some help. I will try and use "lu" (probably simply a mix between "pu" and "li") instead of a main clause's "li" in case that "li" is being used after a relative clause.

- "jan pi ona li moku e soweli *lu* moli." (The man that ate beef died.)

Is this how "pu" worked?

jan Sepo (Stefo)
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janTepanNetaPelin
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Re: Restrictive relative clauses

Post by janTepanNetaPelin »

janSepo wrote: jan Sepo (Stefo)
P.S.: I changed my name to jan Tepan.
https://github.com/stefichjo/toki-pona (mi sitelen e lipu ni pi toki pona)
mi jan Tepan. mi pu. mi weka e jan nasa Kipo e jan nasa Lope.
janKipo
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Re: Restrictive relative clauses

Post by janKipo »

Not sure how I missed this. 'pu' as a relative clause marker was never fully worked out by Mato, but I think that is the general idea. I do think that the proposal (also not really developed) from Sonja would handle your object case as 'jan pona mi li sona e jan pi li moku e soweli', taking the attached NP as subect of the subordinate clause. The real problem seems to come when the referent is not the subject, say "the man the beast ate" 'e jan pi soweli li moku e ona', which is saved by the 'two word" part of the 'pi' rule, but would founder on, say, "strong beast: 'li sona e jan pi soweli wawa li moku e ona' "knows a man somehow connected with strong animals and ate him."
There has been no significant interest in this addition to the grammar and so no particular effort to figure exactly how it would go -- or even to think about whether we really want it rather than --or in addition to, actually -- the devices we already have. Maybe some day.
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jan_Lope
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Re: Restrictive relative clauses

Post by jan_Lope »

jan Sepo o, toki!

It is not the aim of Toki Pona as the simple languages to support recursions. No recursion means:
- no nested subordinate clauses
- no nested li, e, la and pi phrases

I ask Sonja to ensure this and she thinks similar.
janSepo wrote: - *"jan pi li moku e soweli li kama moli."
This sentence is wrong because after "pi" have to be a noun or pronoun and an adjective. Separators like "pi" and "li" can't stand together.
pona!
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(Lessons and the Toki Pona Parser - A tool for spelling, grammar check and ambiguity check of Toki Pona)

On my foe list are the sockpuppets janKipo and janSilipu because of permanent spamming.
janKipo
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Re: Restrictive relative clauses

Post by janKipo »

Well, the sentence is essentially from Sonja, as something she has considered. She may have decided definitely against it, but she has not said so publicly, so speculation is still possible.
As for the claim that Sonja agrees, etc., I tend to take them cum grano salis since my experiences with Sonja over the years have been that she rarely answers questions (of course, not answering my question may just a sign of good taste on her part).
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janTepanNetaPelin
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Re: Restrictive relative clauses

Post by janTepanNetaPelin »

jan_Lope wrote:jan Sepo o, toki!

It is not the aim of Toki Pona as the simple languages to support recursions. No recursion means:
- no nested subordinate clauses
- no nested li, e, la and pi phrases

I ask Sonja to ensure this and she thinks similar.
janSepo wrote: - *"jan pi li moku e soweli li kama moli."
This sentence is wrong because after "pi" have to be a noun or pronoun and an adjective. Separators like "pi" and "li" can't stand together.
Makes sense! I would like to know that from Sonja, too. :)

(I changed my name/account to "jan Tepan".) :)
https://github.com/stefichjo/toki-pona (mi sitelen e lipu ni pi toki pona)
mi jan Tepan. mi pu. mi weka e jan nasa Kipo e jan nasa Lope.
janKipo
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Re: Restrictive relative clauses

Post by janKipo »

Makes some sense, not definitively, though. And I too would like to hear from Sonja (I won't hold my breath).
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