Relative clause in Mada

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.