3.3.2. Complex Sentences
As
defined earlier complex sentence consists of a single main clause with one or
more subordinate clauses. Though there
is no hard and fast rule regarding whether a main clause precedes a subordinate
clause or vice versa, on the whole subordinate clauses are embedded within the
main clause or subordinate clauses occur before the main clause as illustrated
in relative clauses.
Illustrations
:
i.
ka?talannə əwpe yèŋte əwúhè suya?pəy?/*imannə təwñí? ña?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
máè yèŋyənme ómnàŋ
9 10
‘people when mix the material to the water/they that day in the river
1 2 5 4 3 6 7 9
catch may fish’
10 8
ii. kòñák ka?tok me cɨŋ əwsin ŋo?ya?pəy?/təw cɨŋ səy hìpək
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
cəmse əwləŋ nàŋ
9 10
‘In Konyak land how may villages are/all
those villages celebrate
1 2 4 3 5
7 6
10
--------------
* In
this section ‘/’ marks the clause boundary.
awleng
at the same time’.
9 8
iii. əwpe ka?məpu ənme óŋya?pəy?/nawya nawsilannə yoyoy nòkme
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
ətancà toloy mayàŋ
9 10 11
‘when from the field in the evening
return/girls boys in (their)
1 2 3 4 5
6
respective house(s) take rest for some
time’
7 8 11
10 9
iv. həyaŋe əwyín ləm ləyne yɨtay ya?pəy?/imante nanme yunàŋ
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8
‘and who does not go to clean the
path/to them in the meeting fine(d)’
1 2
4 3 6 7 8
3.3.3. Compound Sentences
Compound
sentence is a coordinate structure. The
coordinators are listed in sec. 2.6.1.
Illustrations :
təwkhəy tɨmannə ka?wante mɨnyóŋ ha?/ənniyu/kòñák ka?talante ise
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
puphəy təy?ha?
8 9
‘so we give thanks to the god/and/show (give) respects to
the Konyak
1 2
4 3 5 9 8 6
people’
7
eə yo?oŋ ha?/həyaŋe/ yóŋ
sìnàŋ
1
2 3 4 5 6
‘he
eats much and sleeps much (big)’
1
3 2 4
6 5
eə hemcà lok/həyaŋe/ enawə hom
1
2 3 4 5 6
‘he
sang a song and his sister danced’
1
3 2 4
5 6
təwkhəy sa?ate
ŋóye/sa?ñuə phawme ŋo?nàŋ ənniyu/ete
1 2 3 4 5 6
anawsaŋñak phəy wepane
ŋo?nàŋ
7 8 9
‘from
that time till now/ the tiger is in the forest / and / to him with man
1 2 4
3 5 6 7
(to) enmity became’
8 9
nàŋ keme taynɨŋ/həya/nòkme
ŋo?nɨŋ
‘would
you (like) to go walking or stay at home?’
hàtəw elay
əca/həya/təwə təw ya? yáŋki
‘that
is his book but I have taken it’
təwme
ŋo?pu əca/həpoy/sa?a tay púyáŋ
‘it
was there but went away soon’
Usually the coreferential subject or
object is deleted.
eə yóŋ yaha?/həpoy/(e) láhà məy ŋo?nàŋki
1 2
3 4 5
6 7
‘he doesn’t eat much but (he) looks healthy’, etc.
1 3 2
4 5 7
6
eə yo?oŋ ha? həyaŋe yóŋ sìnàŋ
1 2
3 4 5 6
‘he eats much and (he) sleeps much’
1 3
2 4 6
5
Here the coreferential pronoun ‘he’ is
deleted.
təwə əsan yɨtəwpu cɨŋme ña?te yɨtay
1 2
3 4 5 6
‘I could not find my net because (of that) (I) did not go
for fishing’
1
3 2 4
6 5
In the
above two sentences, the subject is deleted in the second clause.
3.3.4. Transformations
In the section on ‘sentences’, the three major sentence types were
discussed. Here some of the other
informations are discussed. The
transformations discussed in this section are-
i.
Pronominalization,
ii.
Reflexivization,
iii.
Causativization,
iv.
Passivization, and
v.
Relativization.
3.3.4.1. Pronominalization is the
process that replaces one or more co-referential
noun phrases in the deep structure
of a sentence with the corresponding personal pronouns in the surface structure.
For instance in a sentence like –
ecəy li?waŋe enaw henloŋ nawya meypu
ŋè-è eə mayne meəŋhúè təy?
‘her brother
lihwang seeing his sister henlong – beautiful he desired to make
lover to her’
In this sentence the subject of the
main clause
eə mayne meəŋhúè təy?
‘he desired to make love (to her)’
the subject he is
coreferential to li/waŋ
the subject of subordinate clause. The narrator of this story instead of
repeating the noun li?waŋ in the main clause, instead, used a pronoun
representing the noun, as an anaphoric pronoun.
This use of a pronoun instead of a noun is called pronominalization. This process is widely employed in sentences
of above constructions, in narrations.
The minimum conditions required for pronominalization are
– 1. constructions spread in two clauses
at least, 2. the subject/object must be coreferentially
related. In the above example the noun
is the subject.
The object of the subordinate clause may function as
subject of the main clause of a comlex sentence, eg. :
təwe nahate an phapu xɨŋne eə moŋmeyàŋ
‘because I gave biscuit to the child he felt happy’
‘he felt happy’
here child the DO of the
subordinate clause, becomes the subject of the main clause.