to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

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to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby le humble » 2016-07-23, 13:23

Hello everybody

I begin to learn tamil language . i wonder how to build neither subject nor objectif relative clause in tamil

i give some examples here

1/ subject relative clause:

the woman ate the apple and you saw her-----------> you saw the woman who ate the apple

2/ objective relative clause:

the woman ate the apple and you saw the apple -------> you saw the apple that the woman ate

in tamil,in korean and in turkish all this relative clause are translated by an "adjective clause" without problems


3/ neither subject nor objectif relative clause:

but i don't have any idea how they translate the following clause type:

the woman ate the appel under the tree. you saw the tree----->you saw the tree under which the woman ate the appel

or you saw the tree that the women ate the apple under

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby voron » 2016-07-23, 13:33

In Turkish it's easy, you just start the relative clause with the preposition which refers to the head of the noun phrase (tree in your example):
[Altında kadının elma yediği] ağacı gördün.
[Under-it woman's apple eating] tree you-saw.

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby Bubulus » 2016-07-23, 14:32

Voron: um, why are you talking about Turkish when this is the South Asian Languages forum and OP is asking about Tamil?

----

le humble: I don't know any Tamil at all myself, but I just had a look at Lehmann's book A Grammar of Modern Tamil and it says Tamil is certainly not similar to English in this case. There turns out to be quite a number restrictions on what can be relativized or not. For example, the dative case can be relativized if it's an indirect object ("the woman to whom I gave a gift") or the goal of movement ("the place to which I went"), but it cannot if it expresses purpose: you cannot say "kumaar paTikkira teervu enraikku" to say "the exam for which he studies", for example.

Similarly, it's only some prepositions that can undergo relativization. The book says iTaiyil 'in the middle of' can do it, but parri 'about' cannot. He gives the following example for iTaiyil:

    iTaiyil oru kuLam irukkira koovilukkuk kumaar poonaan
    'Kumar went to the temple in the middle of which there is a tank.' (Example is from page 292.)

It seems that you simply put the preposition first, then the sentence at the left of the noun ending it with -a.

As for how to translate a sentence like "Did you go to the place that I talked to you about", I suppose you'd need to use an alternative construction. Something like "I talked to you about such-and-such place. Did you go there?". Again, I don't know Tamil, but this is typical of languages with such restrictions in relative clauses.
Last edited by Bubulus on 2016-07-23, 17:14, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby voron » 2016-07-23, 15:18

Serafín wrote:Voron: um, why are you talking about Turkish when this is the South Asian Languages forum and OP is asking about Tamil?

:oops: Sorry, I thought it was in the General Forum, and I saw the OP's asking about Tamil, Korean and Turkish, so I thought it was relevant.

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby le humble » 2016-07-23, 16:37

Hello veron and seraphin

I'm sorry , for Voron ,he has just answered to my question that i spoke about tamil, turkish and korean about

because this language have similar way to build the relative clauses


sincerly

thanks for you answers Voron and Séraphin

i'll try to read this grammar book to get more informations

A bientôt

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-24, 1:57

Sorry I didn't reply on this thread earlier! I forgot to check this forum this morning especially because it isn't usually active. :lol:

I know some Tamil but mostly just a passive understanding of it because my heritage language is Malayalam, which is very closely related. Serafín, I think most of what you said from that book is true of Malayalam as well.
Serafín wrote:Similarly, it's only some prepositions that can undergo relativization. The book says iTaiyil 'in the middle of' can do it, but parri 'about' cannot. He gives the following example for iTaiyil:

    iTaiyil oru kuLam irukkira koovilukkuk kumaar poonaan
    'Kumar went to the temple in the middle of which there is a tank.' (Example is from page 292.)

It seems that you simply put the preposition first, then the sentence at the left of the noun ending it with -a.

Tamil doesn't have prepositions; it has postpositions. iTaiyil means 'in the middle', not 'in the middle of', so iTaiyil oru kuLam irukkira koovil literally means something like 'in-the-middle a tank existing temple'.
As for how to translate a sentence like "Did you go to the place that I talked to you about", I suppose you'd need to use an alternative construction. Something like "I talked to you about such-and-such place. Did you go there?". Again, I don't know Tamil, but this is typical of languages with such restrictions in relative clauses.

In Malayalam, it seems possible to just say something along the lines of "did you go to the place I told you?" but I don't know whether this is possible in Tamil, too, or not.
Last edited by vijayjohn on 2016-07-24, 3:26, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: it can mean 'tank' in Malayalam, too; it's just that the only meaning I was familiar with was 'pond'

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby linguoboy » 2016-07-24, 3:10

I never needed to make a sentence like this in Korean. Apparently it uses the same type of construction (at least in some cases). E.g.:

...집, 그 안에서 보는 관점에...
.../cip ku an eyso po.nun kwancem ey/...
house PROX inside LOC.ABL see-PROC standpoint LOC
"...a house, viewed from within which..."

But often it's not necessary:

/wuli ka pap ul mek.un cip/
we NOM food DO eat.MOD house
"the house we ate our meal in"
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby Bubulus » 2016-07-24, 3:57

vijayjohn wrote:Tamil doesn't have prepositions; it has postpositions.

I see.
vijayjohn wrote:
As for how to translate a sentence like "Did you go to the place that I talked to you about", I suppose you'd need to use an alternative construction. Something like "I talked to you about such-and-such place. Did you go there?". Again, I don't know Tamil, but this is typical of languages with such restrictions in relative clauses.

In Malayalam, it seems possible to just say something along the lines of "did you go to the place I told you?" but I don't know whether this is possible in Tamil, too, or not.

That still has a relative clause though. "Did you go to the place [that] I told you [about]?" Unless you mean that in Malayalam "tell" is ditransitive in the case (i.e. you can "tell somebody a place").

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-24, 4:16

Serafín wrote:That still has a relative clause though. "Did you go to the place [that] I told you [about]?"

Yeah, that's right. I'm not sure whether Tamil has the same thing or not, but unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me if that grammar turned out to be wrong (this frequently seems to be the case for grammars of South Asian languages FWICT).

Also, having thought about it some more, I'm actually not sure what the constraints are for relativization in Malayalam. Maybe I should try testing some sentences on my dad or something, although of course that still wouldn't do anything about Tamil. :P

EDIT: Also, a thought on the original question:
le humble wrote:but i don't have any idea how they translate the following clause type:

the woman ate the appel under the tree. you saw the tree----->you saw the tree under which the woman ate the appel

or you saw the tree that the women ate the apple under

In that particular example, my guess would be that you wouldn't use a relative clause there at all since you could instead just say 'you saw the tree over the woman eating the apple'.

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby le humble » 2016-07-24, 4:57

Hello everybody

thanks Vijay for your suggestion

so how can you translate that clause (give me please the solution with the malayam way with meaning please)

the big stone is falling on the house that i have taken the treasure from

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-24, 5:03

Okay, bear in mind that I'm not a native speaker of Malayalam or anything (it's my heritage language - my parents' native language, but not mine*), so I'm just guessing here. But my very tentative guess is:

njaan nidhi eTuththa viiTEl valiya kall(u) viizhunnu
I treasure took.REL house-on big stone is-falling

(eTuththu means 'took'; eTuththa in Malayalam is the form of that verb you'd use before the noun it modifies).

*Also, while I hear it every day, I don't notice how they relativize things in conversation because I don't think they do that all that often. :P I think I've only noticed relativization of non-direct objects in literature.

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby le humble » 2016-07-24, 17:59

hello everybody

VyjaiJohn from your suggestion i tried to write this tamil clause the words are very similar

நான் புதையலை எடுத்த வீட்டுக்கு பெரிய கல் விழந்தது
naan puthayeilei eDuththa veeTTukku periya kal veezhunthathu
i treasure-object took house-to big stone fell

then the case "from" is omitted

peharps it's the same thing in tamil? :o

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-24, 18:10

le humble wrote:hello everybody

VyjaiJohn from your suggestion i tried to write this tamil clause the words are very similar

நான் புதையலை எடுத்த வீட்டுக்கு பெரிய கல் விழந்தது
naan puthayeialei eDuththa veeTTukku periya kal veeizhunthathu
i treasure-object took house-to big stone fell

then the case "from" is omitted

peharps it's the same thing in tamil? :o

I would think it was something like வீட்டின் மீதே 'above the house' or வீட்டில் 'in (on?) the house' rather than வீட்டுக்கு (can you read Tamil script btw? :)). வீட்டுக்கு means 'to/for the house', not 'on the house'. Apart from that, I don't know. Maybe. *shrug*

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby le humble » 2016-07-24, 19:37

hi Vijay

I'm just a beginner in Tamil.

i think that the இல் suffix means a place where an action is accomplished

and உக்கு means a motion from a place to an another place no?

or i must translate onto in tamil by மீது but which case has the preceding noun

and thanks for the corrections

puthayalei ----> புதைலை

விழந்தது-------->vizhunthathu

yes i can read tamil script but i 'm not alway sure of the pronunciation

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-24, 19:57

le humble wrote:hi Vijay

I'm just a beginner in Tamil.

Cool! :)
i think that the இல் suffix means a place where an action is accomplished

Yeah, it usually means 'in', but I think it might also mean 'on' sometimes.
and உக்கு means a motion from a place to an another place no?

No, I'm pretty sure it's a dative case suffix and can mean either 'to' or 'for' and be used for a lot more than motion, e.g. giving something to someone or "hey, there's a letter for you in the mail!"
or i must translate onto in tamil by மீது but which case has the preceding noun

Genitive, so வீட்டின் மீது would literally mean something like 'the top of the house' -> 'above the house'.
and thanks for the corrections

No problem! :)
yes i can read tamil script but i 'm not alway sure of the pronunciation

That's okay! I'm not sure either. I think I have a problem of pronouncing things in Tamil too much like Malayalam. :lol:

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby le humble » 2016-07-25, 16:19

Hello

I would like thank you a lot for your helpful answers

so if you don't know this site for the tamil language learning

http://www.southasia.sas.upenn.edu/tamil/

it's very nice work.

enjoy it

ps:

(But the little problem is that they are speaking very fast in the video. :mrgreen: )

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-25, 17:02

Oh yeah, I know that site. That's my favorite one for learning Tamil. Tamil isn't really one of the languages I'm actively trying to learn right now, though. Sorry. :P

And my biggest problem with that site is the loud flute music. :lol:

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby Aekalaivan12 » 2016-09-07, 22:41

the big stone is falling on the house that i have taken the treasure from------ நான் புதையலை எடுத்த வீட்டின் மேலே அந்த பெரிய கல் விழுந்தது.(naan pudhaiyalai edutha veetin mele andha periya kal vizhundadhu)

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby Aekalaivan12 » 2016-09-07, 22:50

இல்,உள் -- in
க்கு -- to,for
Here the word FOR has another meaning ஆக .

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Re: to build neither subject nor object relative clause in tamil

Postby le humble » 2017-03-01, 6:01

Thanks very much Aekalaivan12

and sorry for my very late answer :oops: :oops: :oops:

it's a very very very helpful answer


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