368 Chapter 11 Complex sentences
(139) Badha settong koburan [se sampe' sateya paggun e-entar-e bannya'
exist one grave REL until now still OV-go-LOC many
reng-oreng].
RED-person
‘There is one grave that up until now many people still go to.’
Substituting any other form of entar 'go' in its position in the relative clause se
sampe' sateya eentare bannya' reng-oreng ‘that up until now many people still
go to’ results in an ungrammatical sentence. The facts are the same for posses-
sors of such NPs, as illustrated with a single example in (140).
(140) mored se buku-na e-careta'-agi Romlah ka Hanina
student REL book-DEF OV-tell-AGI Romlah to Hanina
‘the student whose book Romlah told Hanina about’
Any form of careta ‘tell’ other than ecareta'agi results in an ungrammatical
string.
There are no long-distance relative clauses; all relative clauses are strictly
local. Any apparent long-distance relativization actually involves prolepsis (see
section 6).
(141) Ale' kennal mored [se e-yaken-ne guru bakal lulus ujiyan].
yngr.sibling know student REL OV-sure-E teacher will pass exam
‘Little Brother knows the student who the teacher is sure will pass
the exam.’
In (141) it appears that mored ‘student’ has been relativized from the subject
position of the embedded clause, bakal lulus ujiyan ‘will pass the exam’. How-
ever, both the object voice of and locative suffix -ne on the verb yaken ‘sure’
are obligatory. The absence of either results in an ill-formed structures. As
shown in section 6, these facts are characteristic of and explained by the prolep-
sis analysis. This strict locality is also characteristic of clefts (section 9) and
constituent questions (Chapter 14 section 5.4).
Headless relative clauses (or relative clauses with null pronominal heads)
are quite common in speech, used to identify an individual or a group of people
or objects that play a role in a sentence.
(142) [Se e-dungeng-ngagi-ya engko' sateya] areya dungeng-nga
REL OV-story-AGI-IRR I now this story-DEF
Ke Moko.
Ke Moko
‘What I will tell now is the story of Ke Moko.’