A GRAMMAR OF OLD TURKIC MARCEL ERDAL LEIDEN BRILL 2004

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CHAPTER FOUR
or into the sea and wash, ...’. This instance can also be considered an
apposition. In the following sentence there is an analytical relative
clause introduced by kim and following its head: bar mu ärki antag
tïnlïglar kim bo nom ärdini tïltagïnta bo ok közünür a©¨¦ tüškä
© (Suv 2,16, the introduction) ‘I wonder whether there are such
creatures as attain good results (i.e. achieve their goals) right here in
this visible world because of this s tra jewel’. What is here being
relativised is not a finite verb as generally in analytical relative clauses,
but a participle without a copula. This is also rather rare but not as rare
as right-branching participles without kim. It may not be a coincidence
that the forms in both passages are -dA I participles, as there may have
been some reminiscence of -dA I in finite use, as in Orkhon Turkic.
4.611. Synthetical relative clauses
Old Turkic relative clauses are usually built around participles.
However, ärgürmiš kïzïl bakïr i©¨¦¡ (BT II 468) ‘the hell
where they give (people) red-hot melted copper to drink’ is a
synthetical relative construction although one would not call the
-mAk+lXg form (discussed in OTWF pp. 153-5) a participle. Relative
clauses qualify nominals referring to one of the entities involved in the
event being described (in the instance just quoted, e.g., the entity is
‘place’). We can thus classify them according to the task of the head
nominal in this event.
1) Orkhon Turkic examples for relative clauses qualifying the
relativised verb’s subject are körür közüm ‘my seeing eyes’ (KT N
10), xaganï igidmiš (KT S9) ‘the ruler who has taken care of you’,
‘the people who were going to perish’ (KT E29). Further,
Uygur täprämäz kamšamaz ornaglarï oronlarï (BT V 189) ‘their
immobile and unshaking abode’ and sävär ï in ïnmïš kän
män
sävär amrak atayïmïn (Suv 626, 16-17) ‘I have lost my baby, my dear
loving chick!’. One would not say that seeing in English my seeing
eyes is a relative clause, though which see in eyes which see would
qualify as one. Our practice concerning Turkic is to call any attributive
participle a relative clause, since the distinction between these and
even elaborate relativizations is gradual and fuzzy. In bir bilgä nom
bilir är (KP 14,3) ‘a wise man who knew622 the doctrine’ the participle
has the object nom but the bracketing could also be (nom bil-)-ir. With
-yOk we have e.g. kö övkä ül öritmäyök tïnlïg ‚a creature which never
622 This is how we have to translate bilir in this sentence and ¡ in the previous
one, since the main verbs are in the past tense.