[2692] in tlhIngan-Hol
{-ghach}
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Jan 21 10:27:48 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 10:19:47 -0500
In-Reply-To: Mark Reed's message of Fri, 21 Jan 1994 09:04:55 -0500 (EST) <1994
01211404.AA14041@cad.gatech.edu>
>From: Mark Reed <Mark.Reed@cad.gatech.edu>
>Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 09:04:55 -0500 (EST)
>\consider the subsentance "qama' qIppu'bogh yaS". Does it say "the
>\officer who hit the prisoner" or "the prisoner whom was his by the
>\officer"?
"who was hit", please. subjective case.
>It is ambiguous, and should be disambiguated by -'e'. This ambiguity
>was noted early on by Krankor (and others); Krankor presented the problem
>and the -'e' solution to Dr. Okrand, who sanctioned the usage. So:
>qama' qIppu'bogh yaS'e' the officer who hit the prisoner
>qama''e' qIppu'bogh yaS the prisoner whom the officer hit
Correct; this is the one true extension to tlhIngan Hol that we have which
has been sanctioned by Okrand himself. This use of "-'e'" can be considered
the right way to disambiguate two-headed relative clauses (it still leaves
problems with "because of the oprisoner whom the officer hit" or "the ship
in which I fled"; these problems have been done to death here already).
However, it should be noted that we have canonical evidence that the use of
a disambiguating "-'e'" is *not* mandatory. That is, it's acceptable to
use "qama' qIppu'bogh yaS" as it stands, presumably with its meaning
determined from context. The ambiguity involved, to me, anyway, seems
perfectly reasonable: lots of languages are no more explicit. The sentence
we have is from Power Klingon:
Hov ghajbe'bogh ram rur pegh ghajbe'bogh jaj:
"A day without secrets is like a night without stars."
Note that here the "head" of both relative clauses turns out to be the
subject, but it's my take that it could be either, depending on the
context.
>-marqoS
~mark
