Relative pronouns
This page contains high-Unicode IPA characters.
Actual pronouns are at the bottom of the page.
For information on word-ordering in relative clauses, consult the syntax page.
Relative pronouns are those which are used in clauses that are known as relative clauses, to point back to something or someone that was mentioned in another clause. Relative pronouns in English include “that”, “which”, “who(m)” and “whose”.
“I know who you are: the one who attacked me yesterday!”
Usage
Relative pronouns are used to introduce relative clauses, which are subordinate clauses that modify a noun. Their function is similar to adjectives in that they work primarily as descriptors. In fact, one might say they are sort of like extended adjectival phrases.
In Cenyani much like in English, relative clauses follow the noun they modify: e.g. “the man who wasn’t there” as opposed to, say, “the not-there being man” or something like that.
Relative pronouns inflect according to their role in the relative clause. For example, in the sentence “I hit the man who wasn’t there”, the relative clause is ”who wasn’t there”. In it, “who” is the subject (because it is the thing that was absent) and would therefore be in the nominative case, quite independent from “the man” who is in the accusative (he was the one who got hit) – even though they technically refer to the exact same entity.
Similarly, “The man whom I had hit got angry” has the roles reversed: here, “the man” is the subject (the one who got angry), whereas “whom” is the direct object (the one who had been hit). Even though they still refer to the same entity.
Relative pronouns make a distinction between animate and inanimate, much like the other pronouns, and also between the three numbers singular, plural and conceptual. The number and animacy of the relative pronoun is determined by whatever it is it refers back to. Grammatical numbers and cases are described in nouns.
There is a special relative pronoun in Cenyani as well. For expressions such as English “I saw what you did” or “I know who you are” – where the emphasised words are so-called relative determiners – Cenyani uses a relative pronoun that is different from the other relative pronouns: xö. It does not inflect for core case, but does have a genitive form xöš. With this pronoun, the personal pronouns sen (for animate, i.e. “who”) and mir (inanimate, “what”) are chosen for backreference – and only those words, producing the expressions sen, xö and mir, xö. Note that the personal-pronoun part inflects for case according to its role in the main clause.
For example, the first sample sentence, “I saw what you did” translates to Ašet ä mír, xö tanet te – literally “Saw I it, what did you”. Note how xö remains in that form even though it is the direct object of the relative clause; if it were any other word, it would be in the accusative case. Similarly, the second sample sentence would be Vási ä sem, xö a te, which literally translates to “Know I him/her, who are you”. The expressions mir, xö and sen, xö and their respective variants are often pronounced as if they were a single word.
All relative pronouns can be used with adpositions – including xö – and they do not require the adposition to be detached. Adpositions and their detachment are described on the adpositions page.
Actual pronouns
| nom. | acc. | dat. | exp. | gen. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inanimate | |||||
| sg. | xa | xac | xat | xar [χar] | xaš |
| pl. | xai | xaci | xati | xari [χari] | xaiš |
| cc. | xa | xacö | xatö | xarö [χarø] | xaš |
| Animate | |||||
| sg. | xo | xoc | xot | xor | xoš |
| pl. | xoi | xoci | xoti | xori | xoiš |
| cc. | xo | xocö | xotö | xorö | xoš |
As you can see, the relative pronouns both follow the exact same pattern.
