Relative clauses... slightly more advanced

[mooose.livejournal.com]

I know the use of который in forming a relative clause (along with its declensions depending on its grammatical role in the relative clause), but how would you deal with saying things like:

The lane, at the end of which is a park, runs next to the river.
The summer, during which we went to Moscow, ended too soon.
They sell newspapers at the kiosk close to where we parked the car.

I've searched through all my textbooks, but all most they get to is "The person with whom he is speaking to is a famous scientist." i.e. using ", с которым ...,".

Thanks in advance :-)

Comments

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Some of it is English weirdness problems.

The lane, at whose end is a park (which ends in a park), runs next to the river.

and

They sell newspapers at the kiosk that is close to where we parked the car.

[mooose.livejournal.com]

the sentences are in proper english, just of a little more literary register. i'm working on texts, not dialogue...

it's funny - in some dialects of english, people would find it odd using the relative pronoun "who" as in "the lane, at whose end is a park", to replace a non-animate subject.

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

I'm not positive about the first two sentences. They sound odd even in English to me. But the last one I don't think needs a relative pronoun because, unless you want to specifically specify that the car was parked by the kiosk, it functions fine by stating that they sell newspapers and that they sell them close to the place where the car was parked. But the second version is if you did indeed want to emphasize the kiosk.

Дорожка, на конце которой есть парк, идёт вдоль реки.
Лето, в течение которого мы ездили в Москву, слишком рано кончилось.
1. В киоске они продают газеты недалеко от того места, где мы ставили.
2. Они продают газеты в киоске, который недалеко от того места, где мы ставили.

[noser.livejournal.com]

Amazing! First two perfect, the last one really close.

Газеты продают в киоске, который недалеко от того места, где мы оставили машину.

You need to drop the они and go impersonal.

[mooose.livejournal.com]

too cool ;-) thanks!

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

What if there were specific people selling the newspapers? Couldn't you leave the "они" in the sentence in that case?

Например:
-Где Иван и Сергей продают газеты?
-Они продают газеты в киоске, который недалеко от того места, где мы оставили машину.

[noser.livejournal.com]

In that case, of course, one needs to use a personal construction with они.

[mooose.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I just realised in the 3rd one, I meant
"They sell newspapers at the kiosk which we parked close to" or
"They sell newspapers at the kiosk close to which we parked"

but I think I know how to do that now cos I didn't know you could have an entire adverbial / prepositional phrase placed before который which declines.

Yeah, the sentences are probably a little odd to most, but it's like saying "I like the person to whom I sent the letter". Nowadays I'd say "whom I sent the letter to", or "who I sent the letter to" (since practically nobody says 'whom' anymore).

Thanks again :-)

[gvadelupa.livejournal.com]

Лучше:

Дорожка, в конце которой есть парк, идёт вдоль реки.

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

Why "в конце", but not "на конце"?

[noser.livejournal.com]

I think we say "A на конце B", if A is visibly _on_ the end of B, like a drop of water on the end of a syringe needle, or a squirrel on the end of a branch. In all other cases it should be "в конце", like "в конце дороги" or "в конце фильма".

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

Спасибо :-)

[gvadelupa.livejournal.com]

The end of the lane itself is too small to accomodate a whole park :). And when we say "на конце" we mean rather exact physical location. But "в конце чего-то" in come cases means that "something ends with something".

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

"to park a car" may be translated as запарковаться, поставить машину, оставить машину, запарковать машину, but never as simply ставить. "Недалеко от того места, где мы ставили" would inginte a question in a native speaker - "что вы там ставили?" :)))

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I knew I was going to run into some trouble with that verb. My dictionary was a little vague, so I just chose the first example (ставить), but I wasn't sure if it took a direct object or not. Thanks for the alternatives.

[noser.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that was just a regular "perfective vs imperfective" English speakers' mistake.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Not only. Yes, it required perfect form (поставили, not ставили,) but also the object (поставили машину; запарковали автомобиль; slangish бросили тачку etc etc etc). The only verb that would not require the object could be запарковались, but if you'd look closer at the word, you'd notice that it ended with -сь (from себя, self) -- which means that there WAS an object anyway: запарковали СЕБЯ :))))))

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're complicating your life by trying to go all fancy when it just sounds really odd.

1) The lane that runs next to the river ends at the entrance of a park. (Though if there's a river next to it... how does it end at a park?)
2) The summer when we went to Moscow ended too soon.

Which text did you get this from?

[mooose.livejournal.com]

I'm assuiming the park's by the river as well... ;-)

and it's semantically the same to say what you said in 1), but the thematic variant shifts the emphasis to the lane ending in the park, not to the fact that it runs by the river.

but the thing about 2) is a little more complicated cos I inserted the commas... I could explain it somewhere else but it doesn't belong in a learn_russian group.

I made the sentences up based on stuff I'd seen across some 20th century French texts that have been translated into English - I think the translators tended to avoid placing the prepositions at the end of the clause, so it doesn't happenin French. eg. "close to whom", "close to which", "around which" "at whose place" etc... (i have to translate from the original French into Russian though) *sob*

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Lemme try :)

>The lane, at the end of which is a park, runs next to the river.

Дорожка (аллея), в конце которой есть парк (sounds quite strange, as if the park opens a list of things located at the end of the lane; better "которая ведет к парку"), идёт (проходит) вдоль реки.
>The summer, during which we went to Moscow, ended too soon.

Лето, в течение которого мы ездили в Москву, закончилось слишком скоро (быстро).

>They sell newspapers at the kiosk close to where we parked the car.

В киоске рядом с тем местом, где мы запарковались (оставили машину, поставили машину), продаются газеты.

[nefis.livejournal.com]

we do not say "запарковаться", we say "припарковаться":)

[madrumos.livejournal.com]

I agree especially with the last few posts and translations. I'd also like to note that, while you did ask about using который, don't forget the wonderful option of replacing them with participle phrases. This is even better if you're going for a literary register. Something like:
Дорожка, ведущая к парку, идет вдоль реки
or
Эта ведущая к парку дорожка идет вдоль реки.

My preferred translation of the second sentence would be:
Слишком быстро закончилось это лето, когда мы ездили в Москву.

Недалеко от места, где мы оставили машину, продают газеты.

I've never been great with it, but remember that word order in Russian is not always the same as in English, different structures have different shades of meaning. Russian has a tendency to put new and important information at the end of a sentence and time information at the beginning.