Subordination and relative clauses

Different kinds of dependence

A complement clause fills a place required by a predicate, as the reported content of “say” or “know.” A relative clause identifies a referent within a noun phrase. An adverbial clause contributes a relation such as time, reason, purpose, concession or condition. Conjunctions are useful clues but not definitions: a participial construction may express a similar relation without a conjunction, and one conjunction can have more than one use. Find the main predicate, then identify how the dependent clause is connected to it.

Latin indirect statement illustrates a construction whose syntax is obscured by a plain English “that.” Dickinson’s Allen and Greenough gives Nōn arbitror tē ita sentīre, “I do not suppose that you feel thus.” Tē is accusative and the embedded predicate sentīre is infinitive. A student should show that structure in an analysis rather than inserting a Latin word equivalent to English “that.” The grammar’s example has its own classical citation; inspect the cited passage when working beyond the teaching sentence.

Relative-clause structure

A relative clause modifies or identifies something that also has a role inside the relative clause. WALS distinguishes clauses after the noun, before the noun, internally headed clauses and several other patterns. Its Maybrat “the sago tree that they felled” shows a postnominal clause; its Alamblak “a man who would have followed you” shows a prenominal clause. These are modern-language comparisons. Neither English order nor a WALS map should decide how a Hebrew, Greek or Mayan relative construction works. Use the attested marker, position and agreement of the language at hand.

Identify the referent and the role it plays in both clauses. An English translation can conceal whether the source language has a relative pronoun, particle, participle, gap, resumptive pronoun or correlating demonstrative. Mark each overt piece and any inferred gap separately.

Absolute constructions

A Latin ablative absolute has a noun or pronoun and a participle or related predicate in the ablative, loosely attached to the main clause. Dickinson cites Caesar, acceptīs litterīs, nūntium mittit: the participial group expresses the circumstance of Caesar’s sending a messenger. The exact relation is supplied by context. Smyth’s description of the Ancient Greek genitive absolute makes a comparable general point using genitive, not Latin ablative, marking. Calling both “absolute” is a helpful comparison; the forms and distribution still require separate grammars.

A translator may make an implicit temporal or causal relation explicit with “after,” “because” or “although.” In the analysis, record that conjunction as a translation decision unless the original contains a corresponding connective.

Conditionals and reported speech

A conditional relates a protasis (“if” part) to an apodosis (main consequence), but the relationship may be factual, hypothetical, counterfactual or conventional. Mood and tense forms in one language do not map mechanically onto English “would.” Reported speech introduces another speaker’s words or propositions and can shift person, deixis, tense and clause type. Preserve the boundary between narrator and quoted voice. In a manuscript, editorial quotation marks are modern unless the writing tradition marks speech directly.

Practice

Take a long sentence with a relative clause and a participle. Put brackets around each clause, underline its predicate, and label the head noun or matrix verb it depends on. Write two English translations if the participle’s causal or temporal force is uncertain, and specify which part of the original allows the ambiguity.