I have seen this question when watching "who wants to be a millionaire?".

1967´de bir dostluk maçı için gittiği, iç savaş süren Nijerya´da uğruna 48 saatlik ateşkes ilan edilen ünlü futbolcu kimdir?

Can you decode this sentence and translate it to English? Give yourselves some credits if you can.

Especially, can you properly mark the subclauses in it?

No native speakers please.

My Try:

Who is the famous footballer for whose sake a 48-hour cease-fire was announced in Nigeria where he went for the sake of a frienship match in 1967 and which was in civil war?

Well done! I would say "for a..." instead of "for the sake of a...". You used "sake" twice.

Now let´s break it up:

1967´de bir dostluk maçı için gittiği, iç savaş süren Nijerya´da uğruna 48 saatlik ateşkes ilan edilen ünlü futbolcu kimdir?

(O) 1967´de bir dostluk maçı için Nijerya´ya gitti.

(O zaman) Nijerya´da iç savaş sürüyordu.

(Onun) uğruna (Nijerya´da) 48 saatlik ateşkes ilan edildi.

Bu ünlü futbolcu kimdir?

The following is interesting.

iç savaş süren Nijerya´da

Nijerya is in no way the subject of the broken up sentence above.The following would also be OK:

iç savaşın sürdüğü Nijerya´da

Similar sentences:

İçinde yemek pişen tencere, or

İçinde yemeğin piştiği tencere

Yıldırım düşen ev, or

Yıldırımın düştüğü ev

İkramiye çıkan adam, or

İkramiyenin çıktığı adam

Now that you mentioned it, yes, there is actually an interesting short-cut in the relative clause

iç savaş süren Nijeriya’da

If I tried to translate it e-t I would probably use the personal participle iç savaşın sürdüğü Nijeriya’da. It must be some kind of a borderline case as both alternatives are acceptable. It looks like playing with subject roles which is probably easier with infinite than finite forms. I knew –dik- participle is flexible but it’s the first time I see –en- participle modify anything but its logical subject (well, no wonder because I didn’t notice it).

Thank you, si++. Why don’t you provide us with some more tricky sentences?

I will when I find another.

The difference appears to be related to the subject of the subclause. With -an suffix, it´s not of an interest (or well known) to the speaker and with -dik it´s a specific thing pointed out with some interest/knowledge.

İç savaş süren Nijerya = Nigeria where there is/was a civil war

İç savaşın sürdüğü Nijerya = Nigeria where the civil war is/was going on

İçinde yemek pişen tencere = the saucepan in which some food is cooking

İçinde yemeğin piştiği tencere = the saucepan in which the food is cooking

etc.

Ne diyecekse dese de biran önce bitse gitse.

Can you identify which -se is used for what purpose (i.e. wish/condition)?

But obviously you can´t say

*Nijerya iç savaş sürdü

*Tencere yemek pişiyor.

Why does it remind me of our favourite topic ergativity? I can´t catch the thought now. Of course it is not direct object that we are playing with but another modifier of the predicate. But on the other hand participle structures are not too pedantic with the classification of the modifier anyway, I mean an undirect object takes a participle modifier just as well as a direct object:

Kamyonetin gence çarptığı an Muğla´nın Bodrum ilçesinde, karşıdan karşıya geçerken kamyonetin çarptığı genç ağır yaralandı.

Komşuların baktığı 81 yaşındaki yaşlı çocuklarının vefasızlığından yakındı.

My Try:

I wish he just said whatever he has to say and it was over as soon as possible.

I think both dese, bitse and gitse are wishes but I can’t really understand if something in the structure of the sentence forces one to think so or not. But my guess is bitse and gitse belong together like the idiom bitti gitti.

http://www.uludagsozluk.com/k/bitti-gitti/

I also thought about it. Even I wrote "I smell some ergativity here" but deleted that part later before posting.