Arêndron Syntax
4: Subordinate clauses

Conjunctions

Arêndron's basic conjunctions are sen “and”, hum “or”, and kho “but not”. Any type of word (or phrase or clause) can be conjoined to others of the same type.

Au zilna sen telnha ghêa
She is my sister and my friend

Au klet proth rûl hum abral
This book is blue or brown

Leshê kh'orzûlê ŋô
I like but I don't love you

(As the example shows, kho is often elided before a second a or o. In fast speech, the nasal of sen, but not that of hum, assimilates to the point of articulation of a following consonant; this is not represented in writing.)

Note that sen is not the most usual way of conjoining nouns or adjectives; instead, a suffix, -mi, is used, on the second noun or adjective if there are two, or on all except the first if there are more.

Bâset zilna telnhami ghêa ghaulyen
My sister and my friend are over there

The -mi suffix does not normally change the stress of a word, so telnhami, like telnha, stresses the “e”. If the root word is stressed on its third-last syllable, the fourth-last after adding -mi, then the stress shifts to the penultimate syllable, leaving a secondary stress on the fourth-last.

Two rules should be noted. Firstly, when a conjoined pair of nouns are in an oblique case, both nouns are inflected, and -mi is placed on the second noun after the case inflection: ra guin zilnau telnhaumi ghêa, “the house of my sister and my friend”.

Secondly, when two noun phrases are conjoined that each contain adjectives or a determiner or quantifier as well as the noun, -mi always attaches to the second noun, not to the first word of the noun phrase. A break in intonation (and a comma in writing) should separate the noun phrases if they are any more complex than ra + noun.

As the first example sentence of this section shows, sen is still sometimes used to conjoin nouns or noun phrases. It is used precisely in sentences like the example, where the two nouns describe one thing in two ways, rather than two nouns referring to two things that are together the subject or object of a verb. One could think of this sentence as a contraction of Au zilna ghêa, sen au telnha ghêa, in which case sen is clearly required (-mi cannot conjoin clauses).

There is a further series of conjunctions that can only join clauses (not nouns or adjectives):

cal

as, in the same way that

dar

even though, in spite of

ech

because

leuta

and therefore

mor

but, although

nar

and then, and next

xeirra

however, on the other hand

Intensional clauses

Intensional verbs are those that take a clause as their object, as they express a belief, doubt or other attitude towards the proposition expressed by that clause: for example, “think” in I think that Atragam is silly. In English, intensional verbs can be set off from their clauses by the word “that”, though this is optional; in Arêndron, the two clauses are only separated by a pause, denoted in writing by a comma. Nherê, au Atragam xeun.

(When the verb of the subclause is au or its plural bât, as in the above example, it is common in spoken Arêndron to omit the verb entirely: Nherê, Atragam xeun. This is not done in writing.)

Note that fronting of adverbs or adverbials, as discussed on the word order page, is considered bad style in intensional clauses, as it could lead to ambiguity as to which verb is being modified. For example, in the sentence Nherê, au bindel Atragam xeun, “I think Atragam truly is silly”, bindel cannot be fronted before au for emphasis, as it might then be interpreted as belonging to nherê. (The placement of the comma would disambiguate the sentence in writing, but intonation would not help in the spoken language, as there is always a slight pause after a fronted adverb.) To emphasise bindel in this sentence, it should be moved to the end: Nherê, au Atragam xeun bindel. (This solution is also used in the variant with au omitted.)

Fronting of the subject is also liable to cause ambiguity, but is perfectly acceptable if the meaning will be clear, either from context or because the two verbs have different person agreement: Nherê, Atragam au xeun. Subject fronting is slightly different in intensional clauses from in main clauses, as it does not emphasise the subject or suggest that the subject carries new information; rather, it emphasises the relation between the two subjects, suggesting that the point of the sentence is to express the first subject's attitude towards the second. Nherê, Atragam au xeun could be an answer to the question Var nheroŋte Atragâmoi? “What do you think of Atragam?”

Verbs of perception can also take intensional clauses as their objects:

Tilê, grûka kleissa
I see that he is drinking milk

With verbs of perception, if the perception took place in the past then both verbs should be in the past (with one exception; see below). However, when using the future auxiliary kux- to put the sentence in the future, kux- is only used before the main verb.

Teirenê, grûkna kleissa
I saw that he was drinking milk

Kuxê tilat, grûka kleissa
I will see that he is drinking milk

The exception is that when a perception, in the past, was of something that is expected to still be the case, the non-past is used inside the intensional clause:

Teirenê, au ghurim
I saw that he is bored (i.e. he was and still is)

Causative verbs are also handled with an intensional clause; the above points about tense usage with verbs of perception also apply to causatives, and similarly to verbs of perception, causatives use the non-past in the intensional clause when referring to causation, in the past, of something that is still the case or an action that is still ongoing.

Gesnê, grûkna kleissa
I forced him to drink milk
(literally, “I forced that he drank milk”)

Dhûrenê, au klet purt rûl
I caused that this wall is blue

Relative clauses

The formation of relative clauses has been touched on briefly in the word order page. Arêndron has only one relative pronoun, do (elided to d' before a vowel), which can stand for “that”, “who”, or “whom”. (Do not confuse the relative pronoun with the interrogative vâral, also meaning “who”; the latter is only used to ask questions.) A noun is relativised by replacing it with the pronoun do, and moving the pronoun to the beginning of the clause:

Baghê proth
I am reading a book

ra proth, do baghê
the book I am reading

Note that both the comma and the pronoun are compulsory; as the example shows, English is happy to omit both. If the noun relativised is in one of the oblique cases, do must be put in the same case. This is what allows Arêndron to make do with only one relative pronoun where English needs a whole set; for instance, the locative replaces “where” to refer to places:

Thesê klet guinhen
I live in this house

ra guin, doien thesê
the house where I live

See the page on case usage for the full range of meanings.

The dummy pronoun

In some relative clause constructions, instead of the relativised noun being replaced by the relative pronoun which is then moved to the front of the clause, a dummy pronoun is left in the slot the noun occupied. There are two main cases in which this occurs:

(1) When the noun being relativised is the direct object of an intensional clause:

Guilnê, orzûla zilna ghêa Marot
I said that my sister loves Marot

ra glem, do guilnê orzûlagh zilna ghêa hal
the man whom I said my sister loves
(literally, “the man whom I said my sister loves him”)

The dummy pronoun is necessary here to show which slot the noun belongs in; ra glem, do guilnê orzûlagh zilna ghêa would mean “the man who I said loves my sister”. (For now I am ignoring the complications added by Arêndron's third/fourth person distinction; see below.)

When a constituent of an intensional clause other than the subject or direct object is relativised, the dummy pronoun is optional. If the dummy pronoun is used, it takes the same case as the relativised noun, and the relative pronoun is not inflected; if the dummy pronoun is not used, the relative pronoun inflects for the case of the relativised noun.

Guilnê, thesê klet guinhen
I said that I live in this house

ra guin, do guilnê thesê hâlyen
the house that I said I live in
(literally, “the house that I said I live in it”)

ra guin, doien guilnê thesê
the house in which I said I live

Both constructions are acceptable, but the first (with the dummy pronoun) is more formal.

(2) When the relativised noun is the possessor of a constituent rather than the constituent itself:

Orzûlê ra zilna Marôtoi
I love Marot's sister

ra glem, do orzûlê ra zilna hâloi
the man whose sister I love
(literally, “the man who I love his sister”)

Note that in this construction, the relative pronoun is always in the nominative regardless of which case is taken by the possessor (possessors can take either the genitive, associative, or dative; see the page on case usage for details).

The dummy pronoun cannot be used to relativise one noun from a conjoined pair, as in ra glem, do Binda orzûlagh Marot sen hal, “the man who Binda loves Marot and him”. The resulting phrase sounds just as comical in Arêndron as its equivalent does in English.

Third and fourth person

I return to an example used in the word order page:

Kœlnê ra glem, d'orzûla Binda
I met the man who loves Binda

Kœlnê ra glem, do Binda orzûlagh
I met the man whom Binda loves

Why is the verb (orzûlagh) fourth person in the second sentence? The answer is that Arêndron only allows one third-person referent to be “active” at any time, and here “the man” is that referent (even though no third-person pronoun or verb has been used!) so Binda has to be fourth person. This is important, because if the next sentence has a third- or fourth-person pronoun as subject, it will refer back to the use of the same person in the current sentence:

Kœlnê ra glem, do Binda orzûlagh. Au dôlat.
I met the man whom Binda loves. He is tall.

Here, au (“he/she is”) is third person, and so refers back to “the man” rather than Binda. The rule for use of third and fourth person with relative clauses is simple: if the subject of the sentence containing the relative clause is third person (either a pronoun or a noun), that “takes up” the third person slot, forcing all other non-speaker non-listener constituents to be fourth person; otherwise, the relativised noun becomes the “point of view” and takes the third person.

Returning to an example used further up the page:

Kœlnê ra glem, do guilnê orzûlagh zilna ghêa hal
I met the man whom I said my sister loves

Again, “the man” is third person, and so “loves”, having “my sister” as subject, must be fourth, and must be given the fourth-person ending: orzûlagh.

Kœlna Marot ra glem, do guilnê orzûlagh zilna ghêa hagh
Marot met the man whom I said my sister loves

Here Marot is third person, so both “the man” and “my sister” are fourth, and the fourth person must be used for the dummy pronoun hagh at the end. (We still know it refers to “the man” and not “my sister”, as “the man whom I said my sister loves herself” is nonsensical.) Here, if the next sentence has a fourth-person pronoun as subject (for instance, ragh dôlat, “he/she is tall”), with no contextual clues to disambiguate this would most likely be understood as referring to the first fourth-person referent introduced: “the man”. In spoken Arêndron, one can often get away with having a couple of potential fourth-person referents floating around, leaving it up to the listener to work out which one is meant; the written language is less tolerant.

One final example:

Kœlna Marot ra daula, d'orzûla hal
Marot met the woman who loves him

Here, Marot is third person, so hal is used to refer back to him, and hagh would be used to make the sentence mean “Marot met the woman who loves herself”. Conversely, a third-person pronoun is used to mean “himself” or “herself” after a third-person noun: Orzûla grœn daula hal, “That woman loves herself”. In other words, the third/fourth person distinction should not be confused with English's way of disambiguating these sentences by making the pronouns reflexive with “-self”; there is some overlap between the methods but there are also differences.