tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 18 10:49:35 1994
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Re: Interesting construction
According to [email protected]:
...
> >De''e' vIlaD 'e' vIqawbogh...
>
> >See how it works?
...
> De''e' vIlaD 'e' vIqawbogh ghItlh tej
>
> just to fit it into a whole sentence, so I can work with it better. As with
> all relative clauses, it is best for analysis to break it up. Any sentence
> using a relative clause is simply two sentence which have one noun, the head
> noun, in common. Thus:
>
> De''e' vIlaD 'e' vIqaw & De''e' ghItlh tej.
I tend to see a little more to it than that. For one thing,
there are at least two classes of relative clause (I say,
scrmbling for my Strunk & White). Restrictive and
Nonrestrictive. Klingon does not seem to distinguish between
them, grammatically. A restrictive relative clause defines the
noun that is used by the main verb. It sets it apart from other
persons, places or things that might otherwise be identified by
the noun. "I hit the officer who was in my way." I didn't hit
any OTHER officers, and the room is full of them.
A nonrestrictive relative clause adds a parenthetical remark
describing the head noun. This is more like your example of two
sentences that share a common noun. "I hit the officer, who was
in my way." There is only one officer here, and I'm telling you
two things about him. I hit him and he was in my way. You can
infer that I hit him BECAUSE he was in my way, but his being in
my way does not DEFINE him as being the officer I hit.
In English, the only difference is the comma, and if we were
dealing with a neuter noun, "that" is preferable for
restrictive relative clauses, while "which" is preferable for
nonrestrictive clauses.
The point is that your example is a restrictive relative
clause. You are identifying the data, distinguishing them from a
universe of other data. The main verb (write) has the data as a
direct object. The relative clause exists in order to specify
that direct object. This is not a peer relationship between the
verbs. That is why changing which verb is the main verb
significantly changes the meaning of the sentence:
> The stylistic point that I mentioned earlier may sway with where we opt to
> put the {-bogh}.
>
> De''e' ghItlhbogh tej vIlaD 'e' vIqaw.
>
> No, this has different connotations. Changing the position of {-bogh} puts
> emphasis or predominance on the other verb. This is used in English so much
> because its syntactic structure of relative clauses is so much different. I'd
> have to think about this a bit more.
I don't think I ever satisfactorily found any nonrestrictive
relative clauses in canon. That is what stopped me from drawing
any conclusions about this, from which I could now show an
instance in which you could reverse the main verb and the
{-bogh} verb with no serious change in meaning to the sentence.
I'm not positive that nonrestrictive relative clauses exist in
Klingon.
If this is true, then your restating a relative clause as two
sentences simply sharing a noun does not apply to Klingon. The
relationship is dependent and therefore monodirectional. This
fits Type 9 suffixes other than {-bogh}, so it probably applies
to {-bogh}.
Gee. Now that I said that here, does this mean I can't write it
up for HolQeD? (sigh) I guess I'll never be famous among HolQeD
readers, except, of course, for my early errors...
...
> >i pliroforia pou thimame oti [ti] diabasa
> >the information which I remember that [optional: it] I read.
>
> I may be misunderstanding this, but I think this would come out in Klingon
> thus:
>
> De' vIlaD 'e' vIqawbogh ghItlh tej.
>
> where {'e'} is the head of the {-bogh} clause.
Interesting thought, but it seems to be going a bit far with
chuvmey. My understanding of {'e'} is that it is a special
pronoun that has exactly one grammatical use as a direct object
of a verb while representing the preceeding sentence.
> This is impossible to
> translate into standard English, but it would be something like, "That I read
> the info, which I remember, was written by the scientist." The English
> doesn't quite convey the Klingon correctly, and I am highly doubtful that
> this construction would arise much in normal Klingon usage.
I'm not even sure it can arise in CORRECT Klingon usage.
> Plus the fact
> that, unless you can use *{'e''e'}, that is, {'e'} with a topic marker to
> distinguish it as the head of the {-bogh} clause, the construction would
> always risk being ambiguous when the subject is third person. Cf., {'e'
> qawbogh yaS}, which is head noun?
I don't think you can put any noun suffix on this pronoun. It
is true that {-'e'} is Type 5, which is the one type you can
put on other pronouns, but I don't think {'e'} can do
everythign that {jIH} can do. I suspect that taking a Type 5
noun sufix is one of those things {jIH} can do that {'e'} CAN'T
do (like be subject, or locative, or causative, or...).
> I am perhaps rambling, since I see no special significance of this in
> Klingon, except that it is very interesting to speculate on the grammatical
> aspects of it.
Good speculation, but I think that with {'e'}, you treat a
small pet as if it were a pack animal. I don't think it can
bear the weight.
> I have myself run into this sort of problem in my own experience, and dealt
> with it only as I thought I should. But it wasn't with {'e'}, rather {-meH}.
> First off, I should explain some things on {-meH}.
>
> In many cases in Klingon, there is a question of whether to use {'e'} or
> {-meH}. This is specifically in the cases of certain verbs, e.g., {Hech} and
> {nID} I'm thinking of in particular. In other words, where there is the
> option between {'e'} and {-meH}, there is the question of which would be
> standard in Klingon, or do I want to say, which *should* be standard in
> Klingon. Regardez:
>
> {tongDuj vIHIvmeH jIHech} or {tongDuj vIHIv 'e' vIHech}.
> {tongDuj vIHIvmeH jInID} or {tongDuj vIHIv 'e' vInID}.
I see your point. I would have been completely in the {'e'
vInID} camp until this explanation. Now, I am unsure. If we
ever get any guidance on transitivity, this may be resolved for
us, since each proposal uses the verb one way or the other.
While my initial response is negative to this use of {-meH}, it
does nicely carry across the sense of purpose that is implied
with these two main verbs, nID and Hech.
> Putting aside for now the fact that Nick's sometimes overuse of {-meH} have
> driven some to extreme conservatism of its use,
Naaaah. My conservatism was initiated by Holtej's presentation
of what he considered to be the specific allowable use of
{-meH}. His argument convinced me.
> I would be willing to support
> these two examples as using {-meH} quite appropriately and efficiently
> according to Okrand's description as well as to the normal use of purpose
> clauses in natural languages. I opt for the {-meH} over the {'e'} in these
> sorts of cases, because I think that the relationship being expressed between
> two such clauses is closer semantically to {-meH} than {'e'}, but that's just
> my opinion.
This is the strong point of your opinion. There is a special
relationship between purpose, trying and intending. I try in
order that I do.
> Now, getting back to relative clauses, I have often run into the problem of
> how to make this sort of construction into a {-bogh} clause. It has turned
> out not so difficult:
>
> Haw' tongDuj vIHIvmeH jInIDbogh
> The freighter which I tried to attack escaped
{{:(>
> There will be those who criticize {jInIDbogh}, but I would ask you to
> consider the construction as a whole first.
The problem here is that you are not trying the freighter.
{-bogh} belongs to the verb that ties the freighter to the main
verb. The extra layer there of the {-meH} purpose clause screws
this up. Note that {-meH} and {-bogh} are both Type 9 suffixes.
I think you have come up with one of those situations Okrand
was trying to avoid by requiring that you cannot have two
suffixes of the same type on the same verb.
The freighter is the freighter which you attack. It is not the
freighter which you try. What you REALLY want to do is
nominalize the {-meH} purpose clause, which Klingon will not
let you do.
Basically, you are trying to open a bottle with a sledge
hammer. You need a better tool. (Try your betleH.) Recast it to
form three sentences:
Haw' tongDuj. 'oH vIHIvmeH jInIDpu'. HIvqa' veqlargh.
> Guido
charghwI'