tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 17 13:02:38 1996

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Re: TLHINGAN-HOL digest 633

> Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 14:11:05 -0400 (EDT)
> From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: tlhab jaj
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>

> >> (lut legh 'e' Hech nuvpu''e')vaD lut bel QIH 'oH
> >  {lut legh 'e' Hech nuvpu''e'} =  is a relative clause used as a noun, and
> >that noun wants a -vaD suffix: "for people who intend to see the story": 
> > where
> >should the -vaD go?
> Aha.  A problem we've had for the longest time.  If you read the HolQeD
> interview with Marc Okrand on relative clauses, I *think* he implies that
> you can't use a relative clause directly as anything but an object or a
> subject of a verb.  You'd have to use two sentences or something (wa'Hu'
> loD legh vavwI'.  loDvamvaD nob vInob.)  I believe Nick Nicholas had an
> article somewhere in which he analyzed the way different languages had
> their relative clauses, and how some permit the head-nouns to be only the
> subject or object, and some to be other elements, and similarly how some
> permitted the relative clauses only to fill certain places in the matrix
> sentence and some were freer.  Is this right, Nick?  Can you clarify the
> way some other, similarly-constrained languages manage for us?

> I may be misremembering what the article and interview said.

Indeed, Mark :-) , and we went through this while I was still in Greece and we 
were proofing Hamlet. Here's the story:

* Relative clause heads can be subjects or objects direct or indirect of the 
relative clause verb, and subjects or objects of the main clause verb. This in 
"I gave the sash to the man who killed Worf", the relative clause head " the 
man" is the indirect object of the main clause verb "gave", but the subject of 
the relative clause verb "killed". In "The man to whom I gave the sash killed 
Worf", "the man" is the indirect object of relative clause verb "gave", but 
subject of main clause verb "killed".

* The restrictions on relativisation in natural languages that I discussed are 
to do with the relative clause verb, *not* the main clause verb. Thus, there 
are many languages in the world in which you can say "I gave the sash to the 
man who killed Worf", but not "The man to whom I gave the sash killed Worf" 
--- because they don't allow heads to be indirect objects of relative clause 
verbs. This kind of restriction goes into a hierarchy: there are even less 
languages where you can express relative clause heads as possessors --- in 
other words, where you use "whose", as in "The man whose sash is big killed 
Worf".

* So according to the evidence from natural language, we would expect a ban on
"The man to whom I gave the sash killed Worf", and not "I gave the sash to the 
man who killed Worf". We would also expect Klingon to be unable to express 
"whose" as in "The man whose sash is big killed Worf". (I challenge anyone to 
do so!)

* So, Okrand may have followed natural languages, in banning indirect objects 
with respect to the relative clause verb, or (as Mark says) banned them with 
respect to the main verb --- which would be quite wacky. That he did the 
former is proven by the following Skybox Card text (HolQeD 3.2:9):

loS... qIb HeHDaq, 'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh lenglu'meH He ghoSlu'bogh 
retlhDaq 'oHtaH.

Here, 'u' Sepmey is the direct object of the relative clause verb 
Sovbe'lu'bogh, but an indirect object of the main verb "'oHtaH".

So, it is reasonable to conclude that relative clause heads can have *any* 
function with respect to the main verb, but are limited with respect to the 
relative clause verb.

This means that Tri'qal is spot on as to how she handles this kind of 
expression: in Klingon, you can say:

"I gave the sash to the man who killed Worf"
wo'rIv HoHbogh nuvvaD Ha'quj vInob,

since the -vaD suffix makes little sense other than to mark the head of the 
relative clause. Anthony's phrase would thus indeed end up as "lut lulegh 'e' 
luHechbogh nuvvaD".

On the other hand, there is no rendering for

"The man to whom I gave the sash killed Worf"
??wo'rIv HoH nuvvaD Ha'quj vInobbogh

which would instead be grammatically interpreted, I contend, only as "The sash 
I gave to the man killed Worf".

In fact, Mark, your interview did say "So only the subject or object of a verb 
can be the head-noun of a relative clause... Then how can we say 'The ship on 
which the captain kills the prisoners is very large'?" "I would do it with two 
sentences." So we are talking about restrictions on the relative clause verb, 
not the main verb.

The cute thing, which I'll remind readers of, is that one of the two linguists 
who performed the natural language research on relativisation I have alluded 
to is Dr Bernard Comrie, KLI member and contributor to HolQeD, as well as 
being a rather big-name linguist. I must say, he was rather tolerantly affable 
on meeting me in Manchester last year...

-- 
NON ME TENENT VINCVLA NON ME TENET CLAVIS    STETIT PVELLA RVFA TVNICA SIQVIS
       Nick Nicholas      http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~nsn   Linguistics
QVAERO MEI SIMILES ET ADIVNGOR PRAVIS        EAM TETIGIT TVNICA CREPVIT EIA
     [email protected]           University of Melbourne
ARCHIPOETAE CONFESSIO                        E CARMINIBVS BVRANIS

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