| often
deleted optionally. Given the sentence |
| (278)
|
/píyawè1
h nà2
óliyà3/ |
| bird-Nom
I-Inst shoot-RemP |
| [A] |
| `I1
shot3 the bird2’ |
|
| the
favourite form is |
| (279) |
|
/píyawè1 óliyà2/ |
| bird-Nom
shoot-RemP |
|
`(I) shoot2 the bird1’ |
|
In
texts, when there is a sequence of sentences in the form of
a topic chain, the nominative NP is said only with the first
and is deleted in the subsequent sentences. |
| (280)
|
/jyimcyane1
á 2
hanáliyà3/ and |
| Jimchane-Nom
house come-Dat |
|
| |
/
tape 4
tháyàgõ5 höbá6 |
| food-Acc
eat-Imp1 forest-Dat |
|
| |
|
| |
|
`Jimchane1 came3 home2.
Having |
|
eaten5 food4, (he)0 went7
to forest6 |
|
| |
It
contrast, many verbless sentences are also available with
just an accusative NP, a dative NP, or an adverbial. |
| |
| (281) |
/h /
`I (he gave it to me)’ |
|
| (282) |
|
/iskul/ `to school (I am going to . . . )’ |
|
| |
Though
the occurrence is agreed upon, the general acceptability is
less since the informants insist on the necessity of the presence
of the verb. We can distinguish these from the other minimal
sentences by saying that the latter involve discourse ellipsis,
whereas the former involve grammatical ellipsis. |
| |
| 3.7.
Relativization |
If
the nominative NP of any sentence has the same referent as
any NP of a second sentence, then the first sentence can be
embeded as a relative clause on to the NP of the second sentence.
The preferred position for a relative clause is immediately
preceding the NP it qualifies. The relative clause is frequently
marked by its verb taking the case inflexion of the NP it
qualifies, when the NP precedes the clause. Mishmi does not
use any overt relativizers. The position of the clause and
some NP movements represent the embedding. Two types of relativization
are noticed. |
| |
| (i)NP
----> NP + S |
| (ii)NP
----> S |
| |
If
the sentences form a topic chain, the lower NP is obligatorily
deleted. But in a situation of identical to the NP on to which
the relativization is applied, it is deleted obligatorily. |
