[85133] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Relative clause fun
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ghunchu'wI')
Thu Oct 9 23:25:54 2008
In-Reply-To: <C5141B9B.2527%speersd@georgetown.edu>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 23:24:17 -0400
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
From: ghunchu'wI' <qunchuy@alcaco.net>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Oct 9, 2008, at 10:35 PM, d'Armond Speers wrote:
> However, in other languages there are other options for which
> element of the relative clause can be the head noun, besides just
> the subject and object. I’m wondering whether their omission from
> TKD is just absence of evidence, or evidence of absence. (I.e.,
> are they possible but not described, or are they not possible
> because they are not described?)
Non-subject, non-object head nouns *are* mentioned in TKD, with the
specific phrase being "the restaurant where we ate." They're not
explained, however, and no Klingon examples are given in the
accompanying text.
If you don't a priori deny the possibility of a Klingon example, the
perpetually problematic {jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe'} from the Useful
Klingon Expressions appendix seems explicable as exactly such an
example.
I've played around with disambiguation, and I think it's potentially
doable with {-'e'} on the noun which is *not* the head noun. The
prohibition on Type 5 suffixes on the first noun of a N-N
construction is a clue to the intended interpretation.
-- ghunchu'wI'
