Kes yu Yil  -  The X that Y-d

This lesson is to tackle one of the most complicated features of Kah: relative clauses. To give you an idea of what relative clauses are, here are some examples from English:

the boy that won

the man who fell

the house which burnt down

Kah does not use words like that, who or which, it does not have relative markers. Instead, Kah resorts to double marking of the word that is the head of the relative clause. Double marking means the word is referred to twice, once as a head, and once with a personal pronoun. In practice this looks like:

simbu yu fiti

boy he win

the boy that won

The head of the phrase is simbu. A phrase like simbu fiti would have meant simply "the boy won". The fact the head is "repeated" by adding a personal pronoun yu "he" makes the relative aspect come out. Compare:

9.1  Kwau yu kiza seki

The following story makes extensive use of double marking/relative clauses:

In this text the word ya was used in order to double-mark a relative clauses having a inanimate noun as a head:

reo ya yunkule janjang wi

EGG it look unusual very

an egg which looked very unusual

More examples of the use of ya as a double-marker are:

aso ya sonu

water it run

running water

dinya ya bai

lamp it broken

the broken lamp

Plural nouns are double-marked by the pronouns yunyo (animate) and yanyo (inanimate):

simbu yunyo senji

boy they dance

the boys that danced

ape yanyo bon

tree they fall

the trees that fell

9.2  Ala al dochu lai 

In this text relative clauses referring to a location came up:

ala wa dochu lai

place I belong there

the place I belong

(literally: "the place I belong there")

ala yu de lai

place he go there

the place he was going

(literally: "the place he goes there")

ala li chu lai

place you from there

the place you come from

(literally: "the place you come from there")

The head of these relative clauses is the word ala "place". It is marked again by the word lai"there". In another relative clause referring to a location the word reo "egg" was double-marked by lai as well:

reo wa bochu lai

egg i hatch there

the egg I came from

(literally: "the egg I was hatched out of there")

Similarly the following locations are double-marked by lai:

kwando wa dede lai

school i attend there

the school I attend

(literally: "the school I attend there")

yudo li dora lai

house you live there

the house you live

(literally: "the house you live there")

dola ya to lai

city it happen there

the city where it happened

(literally: "the city it happened there")

For words referring to time, the double-marking is done with the word tai "then":

ata wa bochu tai

time i hatch then

when I hatched

(literally: "the time I hatched then")

tiro yu senchu tai

year he be born then

the year he was born

(literally: "the year I was born then")

sinta yu jebonu tai

moment she realize then

the moment she realized

(literally: "the moment she realized then")

9.3  Amun chumunye 

The phrase amun chumunye "that's why" is a relative clause of its own. The word chumunye "because of that" double-marks the word amun "reason": "The reason is because of that". Compare:

nong jo amun wa jam chumunye

not know reason i do because of that

I don't know why I did it

(literally: "I don't know the reason I did it because of that")

ka wa amun li jam chumunye

say i reason you do because of that

tell me why you did it

(literally: "Tell me the reason you did it because of that")

aye amun mambau che naim chumunye

that reason wolf hit rabbit because of that

that's why the wolf hit the rabbit

(literally: "That is the reason the wolf hit the rabbit because of that")

tengi ka wa amun na tusung en jempeza lau chumunye ha?

can say i reason of be prohibited that smoke he because of that q

can you tell me why it is prohibited to smoke here?

(literally: "Can you tell me the reason of being prohibited to smoke here because of that?")

Furthermore, we saw a relative construction which is translated with gerunds in English:

mambau donka naim yu yoyoi

wolf yell rabbit he cry

the wolf yelled at the crying rabbit

(literally: "the wolf yelled at the rabbit he cry")

Kah uses such constructions quite a lot:

une yu la jika

bird it be at sing

the singing bird, the bird that is singing

weyun une yu la jika

saw bird it be at singing

I saw the singing bird, I saw the bird that was singing

wamai kenyo yunyo la fiti

cheer team they be at win

they cheered for the winning team, the team that was winning

Also, the story contained a relative clause of manner:

naim nong jo ashi tengi janyosa mambau shai

rabbit not know manner can satisfy wolf like that

the rabbit did not know how to satisfy the wolf

(literally: "the rabbit did not know the manner he could satisfy the wolf like that")

The word shai "like that" double marks the word ashi "manner". Compare:

awau nong ashi eno jam shai

this not manner to do like that

this is not the way to do it

(literally: "this is not the manner to do it like that")

om yun ashi jam shai

opt look way do like that

let's see how to do this

(literally: "let's look at the manner to do it like that")

ashi eno zia yunga shai

manner to serve human like that

how to serve man

(literally: "the manner in order to serve human like that")

9.4  Yuka be li la kwan ya 

The text in the previous paragraph contained a phrase reading:

munyun mambau bea be yulo shim ya

show wolf room top himself clean it

he showed the wolf the room he cleaned

This phrase is interesting because of two things. First of all, the pronoun yulo "himself" is used instead of yu "he":

munyun mambau bea be yulo shim ya

show wolf room top himself clean it

he showed the wolf the room he cleaned

If he would have said yu "he", the translation would be identical in the English translation:

munyun mambau bea be yu shim ya

show wolf room top he clean it

he showed the wolf the room he cleaned

The difference would be in the interpretation of the English word "he". When the Kah sentence uses yulo, the word refers back to the speaker, the rabbit:

munyun mambau bea be yulo shim ya

show wolf room top himself clean it

he showed the wolf the room he (i.e. the rabbit) cleaned

When the Kah sentence uses yu, however, the word refers to a third person:

munyun mambau bea be yu shim ya

show wolf room top he clean it

he showed the wolf the room he (i.e. someone else) cleaned.

Also compare:

simwana ka yulo kwasi

girl say herself alone

the girl said she (.i.e. the girl herself) was alone

simwana ka yu kwasi

girl say she alone

the girl said she (i.e. someone else) was alone

simwana ka ustu kwasi

girl say friend alone

the girl said her friend was alone

The second remarkable thing about this phrase is the use of the topic marker be. The head of the relative clause, the word bea, is followed by it:

bea be yulo shim ya

room top himself clean it

the room he cleaned

The head bea is marked by the marker be since the object of the verb shim "to clean" is placed in the beginning of the phrase just like the examples we encountered earlier in Lesson 8:

Now compare the following phrases:

And the difference between the following phrases:

bau yu randun meo

dog he bite cat

the dog that bit the cat

bau be meo randun yu

dog top cat bite it

the dog the cat bit

The following conversation contains a lot of relative phrases and the be marker:

I realize these relative clauses are tricky stuff. Therefore a large portion of the exercises is provided to assist with recognizing, producing and repeating (and repeating) relative clauses: