tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 04 16:48:00 1995
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Re: relative phrases
On Wed, 3 May 1995 [email protected] wrote:
> How does one reference the object of one sentence as the object
> of another sentence. eg An officer hit a boy.
> If I see the action I say <loDHom qIp yaS 'e' vIlegh>
> If I see the officer I say <loDHom qipbogh yaS vIlegh>
> How do I say I see the boy whom the officer hit? I would think I
> could topicalize <loDHom> in the second sentence, qar'a'.
> <loDHom'e' qipbogh yaS vIlegh>
That's exactly how you do it. I believe HoD Qanqor came up with the idea
of using {-'e'} to mark the head noun of a relative clause. They asked
Okrand, and he said it is okay to do this.
Since {loDHom qIpbogh yaS vIlegh} is ambiguous, because we don't know
whether I see the boy or the officer, we can use {-'e'} to mark the head
noun of the clause and thereby indicate which noun is the direct object
of {vIlegh}
loDHom'e' qIpbogh yaS vIlegh. I see the boy whom the officer hit.
-or- I see the boy who was hit by the officer.
loDHom qIpbogh yaS'e' vIlegh. I see the officer who hit the boy.
> Brad
yoDtargh