Abstract:
In the process of Mada New Testament translation, there was a
debate on several occasions during the testing and reviewing
process as whether to include some grammatical particles in
the translation or not. Some of these particles were relative
clause markers. To some people, whenever such particles are
left out, the reading in the language does not flow naturally
for them, but when used, an addition of linguistic flavour is
inferred immediately. On the other hand, to some people, the
use of such particles prolongs sentences and so makes the
reading not easy for those who are new readers in the mother
tongue. It is on the basis of this argument that I have the
interest to do some studies on relative clause in Mada. The
aim of the studies is to establish the different relative
clause markers and their roles in the spoken grammar of this
language.
To achieve this goal, I have taken ten recorded stories told
by different people and some short written ones by others of
the same dialect and of the same language to use as my data
for the study. However, I have just included only two of such
stories as samples. It is my desire to come out with a paper
that would provoke other Mada people to do a better work on
the subject that would result in solving the problem.
