tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 20 21:49:06 1995
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Relative clauses
On Mon, 20 Feb 1995, William H. Martin wrote:
> According to R.B Franklin:
> >
> > On Thu, 16 Feb 1995, R.B Franklin wrote:
> >
> > > Also, I found one canon example of a locative on the head noun
> > > of a relative clause on DS9 trading card #99:
> > >
> > > loS...qIb HeHDaq, 'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh lenglu'meH He ghoSlu'bogh
> > > retlhDaq 'oHtaH.
> > > "It waits...on the edge of the galaxy, it remains next to a route which
> > > they come to in order to travel to unknown regions of the universe."
> >
> > After reading this again, I think Okrand made a mistake. Shouldn't {'u'
> > SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh} be {'u' SepmeyDaq luSovbe'lu'bogh} instead?
>
> This is the root of the problem with the whole example. You
> would be right if {Sepmey} were the object of {Sov} but it is
> not. It is merely the locative... but then it is NOT the
> locative of {Sov}. It is the object of {Sov}, while it is the
> locative of {leng}. But objects don't take {-Daq}.
But there is a canon example of an object with {-Daq}: {DujDaq ghoStaH.}
> I don't think the mistake was to forget the {lu-}. I think the
> mistake was to allow a relative clause head noun to be the
> locative of another verb.
>
> Think about it. If {leng} were transitive and had an explicit
> object, this sentence would be a royal mess, since you can't
> use {-'e'} to label {Sepmey} as the head noun of the relative
> clause. At that point, our new noun could be the subject and
> head noun of the relative clause or the object of the main
> verb, or both and the locative could apply only to the relative
> clause or to the main verb or both, or it could be (as it was
> intended) as the direct object and head noun of the relative
> clause and the locative for the main verb.
But it seems to me, that if you attach any kind of Type 5 noun suffix to
the subject or object of a relative clause, in the process, you would
also be marking that noun as the head noun of the clause to indicate that
that word also has a syntactic relationship with the main verb of the
sentence.
I fail to see a distinction between marking the head noun of a relative
clause with {-'e'} to indicate the direct object of the main verb,
marking it with {-vaD} to indicate the indirect object, or marking it
with {-Daq} as a locative.
For example, the relative clause, {'avwI' qIpbogh qama' vIlegh} is ambiguous
since the head noun is not indicated. To indicate the head noun, you
would add {-'e'} to the head noun to indicate whether the subject or the
object of relative clause is the direct object of the main verb, {legh}.
E.g. {'avwI' qIpbogh qama''e' vIlegh}: {qama'}, the subject of {qIp}, is
also the object of {legh}.
But if I say {'avwI'vaD qIpbogh qama' tajwIj vInob}, I am marking
{'avwI'} as the head noun of the relative clause with a different Type 5
suffix. Although it is the direct object of {qIp}, by using {-vaD}, it is
also simultaneously the indirect object of the main verb {nob}.
Likewise, if I put {-Daq} on the subject or object of a relative clause
it would also mark that word as the head of the clause:
'u' sepmeyDaq luSovbe'lu'bogh jIleng.
I think the same process would apply for {-vo'} and {-mo'} as well.
After having written all this, I discovered Captain Krankor basically
says the same thing in HolQeD 1.3.
Additionally, the head noun of a relative clause does not need to be
marked by {-'e'} when the head noun is explicitly stated and the tail
noun is indicated by a pronoun. (q.v. Sec 6.2.3 and {ghItlh vIghItlhta'bogh
DalaD'a'} (p. 172)). Similarly, I don't think the head noun needs to be
marked with {-'e'} when the relative clause contains {-lu'}; the
indefinite subject automatically becomes the tail noun of the relative
clause. E.g. Ho'Du'lIjDaq to'baj 'uSHom lughoDlu'bogh tu'lu'. (PK)
yoDtargh