tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 08 21:23:08 1997
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Re: Question-Relative Clause
- From: "WATT FAMILY" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Question-Relative Clause
- Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 15:15:05 +1000
don't send this to [email protected]
----------
> From: Scott Murphy <[email protected]>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
> Subject: Question-Relative Clause
> Date: Friday, 7 November 1997 4:57
>
> It is good to debate these grammatical issues, but perhaps not good to
> infuse them with such emotion. My intention was not to imply that a
"new"
> grammatical construction should be made a part of the language. In
> mentioning the possible emergence of dialect in tlhIngan Hol, I only
> wanted to give the die-hard "questions are not sentences" people a way to
> deal with this issue WITHOUT getting so emotional about it. It seems
that
> my effort failed. I'm not here to discuss adding new things to Okrand's
> creation, only to discuss, debate and practice using it.
>
> >I disagree. This might be a normal way of thinking for English
speakers,
> >but that doesn't prove that all languages work this way.
>
> OK. Let's look at a language which works differently. In Russian, to
say
> "They don't know how it happened," we say "Oni ne zna'ut, kak eto
> sluchilos'." This is NOT a relative clause construction, but rather a
> sentence-as-object construction. "Oni ne zna'ut" means "they don't
know".
> The comma delineates the sentence "Kak eto sluchilos' = How did this
> happen" as being the object of the verb "zna'ut". In Russian, relative
> clauses are NOT marked by question words, but rather by the adjective
> "kotorii". We could say, instead, "Oni ne zna'ut prichinu, kotora'a eto
> prichinala sluchilot's'a." This roughly translates as "The don't know
the
> cause, which causes this to happen." It can be said, but it sounds
> ridiculous.
>
> This being said, I wish to point out (as others have) that nowhere in TKD
> does it say that questions cannot serve as objects of 'e'. In fact, in
> the section on relative clauses, TKD states "Relative clauses are
> translated into English as phrases beginning with who, which, where, and,
> most commonly, that. Like adjectives, they describe nouns: the dog which
> is running, the cat that is sleeping, the child who is playing, the
> restaurant where we ate. The noun modified by a relative clause is the
> head noun." The sentence "They don't know how this happened," does not
> contain a relative clause. In fact, it doesn't even contain a noun which
> would serve as the head noun. The subject is "they". The object is "how
> this hapopened". The verb is "don't know". Until we either see an
> example in canon of a sentence like this, or get an explanation from
> Okrand. The question IS still open for debate.
>
> >There IS no defense for this.
>
> It would be easier to understand your argument if you provided reasoning
> behind such statements.
>
> >wanI'vam qaSmoHpu'bogh ghu''e' luSovbe'
>
> event-this happen-cause-perfective-which situation-topic
> they/it-understand-not.
>
> Hmmm...They don't understand the situation which caused this event.
> It sounds great. Excellent! But it seems a little wordy.
>
> >"They did not know that how had this happened?"
>
> The insertion of "that" is not always implied by the use of 'e'. An
> example from TKD: yaS qIppu' 'e' vIlegh = I saw him/her hit the officers.
> Also the order of "had this" is not implied by the Klingon. So a more
> accurate translation would read: "They did not know how this had
> happened." Which is exactly what I was trying to say. Notice also that
> TKD says that 'e' is often used with verbs such as" know", "see". The
> verb I used was "know". It seems to fit TKD's criteria.
>
> ******************************
> * Scott Murphy *
> * University of Kentucky *
> * email: [email protected] *
> ******************************