482 8 Verbal derivation
(496) Demonstrative Heads in Relative Clauses
a. speech-act participant as subject of definite relative1 1st, 2ndb. 3rd person subject definite relativew-ά
w-i
t-ά
t-13MaSg
3MaPl
3FeSg
3FePlThe 3rd person demonstratives in (496.b) are also used as regular
demonstrative ('this', 'these') after nouns, as in ae-hdbs w-ά 'this man' (§4.3).
A typical definite relative is ae-halas [w-α l-jraew-asn] 'the man who entered'.
The demonstrative 1 in (496.a) occurs only in relatives, following a 1st or 2nd
person independent pronoun, asin nsekk i kaewael-asn Ί who am black'.
Indefinite subject relatives are expressed by placing the participle
immediately after a head NP, which is generally interpreted as indefinite ('a
man who ate'), or else after the indefinite demonstrative Mai or Fe t-1. Mai is
an accidental homophone of the lst/2nd person definite demonstrative in
(496.a).
In subject focalization (§12.2.1) the invariable Focus particle ά
intervenes between the fronted focalized NP (which may be a pronoun) and the
participle. I take ά to be a bare demonstrative root, cf. the -ά of Sg
demonstratives w-ά and t-ά in (496).
(497) Demonstrative Head in Focalized Clauses
In definite relatives, but not in indefinite relatives or in focalized clauses,
the verb undergoes certain ablaut modifications. This applies both to
participles (in subject relatives) and to ordinary inflected verbs (in non-subject
relatives, §12.1.2ff.). The ablaut modications are χ-pcl Erasure (130) in the
two MAN stem-types where lengthening ablaut formative χ-pcl occurs (Resit,
LoImpfP), and for many pronominal subject categories there are also
adjustments (audible only in the LoImpfP) in ablaut-induced accent,
χ-Erasure (136) or Rightward Accent Shift (132). See §3.5.3 for a summary
of these modification rules. The erasure of χ-pcl hints at an affinity between
definite relative clauses and adjectival verbs, which generally omit χ-pcl even
in normal main clauses. This is suggestive, since of course relatives are
"adjective-like" in a sense, but note that indefinite relatives do not erase χ-pcl.
ά (all subject categories)