[1443] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: relative clauses (again)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Aug 24 20:01:05 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 08:53:25 +1000 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <9308241607.AA26402@startide.ctr.columbia.edu> from "shoulson@ctr.
columbia.edu" at Aug 24, 93 12:07:09 pm
(The usual morning brain-stretch. It's 7:40 -- I fell out of bed)
These constructions occurred to me, without thinking:
yaS vIlegh qIppu'bogh puq = I see the officer whom the child hit
yaS qIppu'bogh puq vIlegh = I see the child who hit the officer
It's not all roses, though:
How do you link together:
puq HoH yaS
yaS qIppu' puq
First step is pretty obvious:
yaS qIppu'bogh puq HoH yaS = the officer kills the child who hit him
Second not so: which "yaS" do you delete, if any?
Thinking back now, there is some underlying logic in that
madness: the verb of the main clause refers to the nearest
noun phrase in the relative clause. This accounts for the
four examples p.64 in the KD:
qIppu'bogh yaS vIlegh
mulegh qIppu'bogh yaS
yaS qIppu'bogh vIlegh
mulegh yaS qIppu'bogh
In my doubtfully correct "yaS vIlegh qIppu'bogh puq" I moved
the main verb next to its object "yaS" (why not? Catullus
does far stranger things: figure his "sed mulier cupido quod
dicit amanti" out). The only other way I can think of this
moment is to repeat the noun: yaS qIppu'bogh puq yaS vIlegh.
Hmmm... yuQDaq yaS qIppu'bogh puq yuQ vIQaw' ?? Sounds
reasonable. There seems to be no compelling reason either
for the relative clause to precede: yuQ vIQaw' yuQDaq...
sounds just as reasonable (but I'm no native Klingon speaker).
Could use vam and vetlh too, to make things terser when
necessary. I, for one, object to having to repeat DIvI'may'Duj
twice to say "the Federation battle cruiser in which..."
So, use ghaH, and stick vam in the noun phrase if it occurs
second, vetlh if it occurs first. Eg. ghaH vIQaw' DIvI'may'DujvamDaq
thloqo' wItu'pu'bogh; or: DIvI'may'DujvetlhDaQ thloqo' wItu'pu'bogh
ghaH vIQaw'; (I wonder: it wouldn't take much to dispense with
ghaH in both instances...) or perhaps even: DIvI'may'Dujvetlh
vIQaw' ghaHDaq thloqo' wItu'pu'bogh.
Enough. I hope that, at least, you'll appreciate my introducing
recent Klingon history into those dire syntactic rantings!
