Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

CLAUSE COMBINING IN NOOTKA 253

10.2 Conditional

The Conditional (third person -qu\, 12 occurrences, 3 of them with particle
2uyi, one with 2ani) also acts as a complementizer, making clauses with an
objective or adverbial relationship to their verb, and expresses varying
degrees of uncertainty about the actuality of the event in question:
(15:7-8)
woman-ART ... unable-MOM-FiN-3 hide truth-MOM-coND-3
"the woman ... became unable to hide the truth".
This even occurs as a form for noun objects, when there is some doubt
about their existence or availability (cf. Jacobsen 1979a: 127-128):

(17:9)

gather together-MOM-cAus-FiN-iMPv-2pL firewood-coND-3

"gather together firewood".

10.3 Relative

The Relative (third person -2rtq, 25 occurrences) was noted by Sapir

(1924:86) as being a sort of nominalization of the Subordinate. Only occa­

sionally does it modify a preceding head noun, as in the following, filling in

the gap in the above example of the Conditional, where the whole phrase

acts as the fronted subject of the clause:

woman-ART who-own-REL-3 child unable-MOM-FiN-3

"the woman whose child he was became unable

(15:7-8)

hide truth-MOM-coND-3

to hide the truth".

A relative stem yaqw- occurs here. Mostly the relative clause stands alone as

a complete core argument of the larger clause, here as an object:

(30:7)

be thereto-cAus-FiN-3 dead-FiN-REL-3

"he put in it him who was dead".

Note that the Finite ending - occurs in this subordinate clause, as in a

few other Relative and Subordinate formations in our sample. This forma-