[86087] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Klingon translation
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ghunchu'wI')
Sun Jun 28 00:37:26 2009
In-Reply-To: <4A46CD5D.8050103@trimboli.name>
From: "ghunchu'wI'" <qunchuy@alcaco.net>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:35:48 -0400
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Jun 27, 2009, at 9:54 PM, David Trimboli wrote:
> The "who" in "I know who stole the money" is an interrogative pronoun.
> The "who stole the money" is an "interrogative content clause": a
> clause
> that *corresponds* with an interrogative sentence ("Who stole the
> money?").
Thank you! I couldn't find the official name of an interrogative
content clause.
Now that I know what words to use in my searches, I find something
very interesting. In English, such clauses are used in pretty much
the same way as are "declarative content clauses". The only relevant
difference is the lack of the optional subordinating conjunction
"that" for interrogative content clauses. The sentence-as-object
construction in Klingon is exactly analogous, in both structure and
meaning, to a declarative content clause used as an object in an
English sentence. Were it not for the fact that they are neither
described nor used in anything written by Marc Okrand, it would be a
very small stretch for me to embrace interrogative content clauses in
Klingon as well. That fact is enough to keep me from trying to use
them, though.
> People who build question-as-object sentences are trying to use
> interrogative content clauses as complete sentences (the first
> sentence
> of the two-sentence construct). But Klingon doesn't have interrogative
> content clauses, so they just use the corresponding question.
Replacing a couple of words in that paragraph:
"People who build sentence-as-object sentences are trying to use
declarative content clauses as complete sentences (the first sentence
of the two-sentence contruct). But Klingon doesn't have declarative
content clauses, so they just use the corresponding sentence."
That *is* how sentence-as-object works, so I don't think it's too far-
fetched to imagine that an interrogative version might work too.
I'm now satisfied that my points have been made and explained well
enough for them to be understood, and I will leave it at that.
--- ghunchu'wI'
