tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 22 14:52:45 1998
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Re: KLBC Poetry
According to David Trimboli:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Qov <[email protected]>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
> Date: Wednesday, January 21, 1998 4:49 AM
> Subject: Re: KLBC Poetry
>
>
> >At 00:59 98-01-10 -0800, tlhIbwI' wrote:
> >}>The bug on the hand died.
> >}Hegh ghopDaq 'oHbogh ghew'e'
> >}
> >Relative clauses with locatives
> >in them are hairy. The only one we have is {meQtaHbogh qachDaq Suv qoH
> >neH}. I believe that what you have written follows the rules as we know
> them.
>
> No, it doesn't. You can use locatives in combination with relative clauses
> as long as the locative noun is either the subject or object of the relative
> clause. (Okrand said this somewhere, can someone tell me where? It was
> along the lines of, "I can't seem to make the locative be anything other
> than subject or object of the clause.")
One of us remembers this incorrectly. I remember Okrand as
saying that he could not make the relative clause thing work
for him for anything but subject or object of the MAIN clause.
In other words, his own {meQbogh juHDaq} example violates what
he said. We clearly need someone to pull out a literal quote
here. You may very well be right, but if you are, I
misunderstood when I heard this the first time.
> meQtaHbogh qachDaq
> In a house which is burning.
> The locative {qachDaq} is the subject of the relative clause. No problem.
Well, having a locative suffix on a noun acting as subject of
ANY clause is worthy of some concern. I know that you see it as
adding {-Daq} to the entire clause, and perhaps you are right.
It just makes me wince again. I guess I do that a lot.
> qIb HeHDaq, 'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh lenglu'meH He ghoSlu'bogh retlhDaq
> 'oHtaH.
> on the edge of the galaxy, beside a passage to unknown regions of the
> universe, (SkyBox card 99)
>
> This is an exceedingly complex sentence fragment, but it works. It's got
> one locative relative clause (making a grand total of two that we know
> about):
>
> 'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh
> to unknown regions of the universe
> The locative phrase is the object of the relative clause. Note that this
> should properly be {'u' SepmeyDaq luSovbe'lu'bogh}, though it's tricky to
> see why.
ug.
> Unfortunately, the suggested sentence does NOT follow the known rules.
>
> Hegh ghopDaq 'oHbogh ghew'e'
>
> The locative is *modifying* the relative clause, not acting as its subject
> or object, and we have no way of knowing whether this is correct. From what
> Okrand has said, I'd have to say this DOESN'T work. (The fact that this
> isn't a verb but a pronoun just makes this sentence even ickier.)
Waaaay icky, especially since it seems to say the same thing as
{ghopDaq Hegh ghew.} Perhaps there may be other examples,
however, that really do need a locative for the relative
clause, so long as the locative noun is not the head noun of
the clause. I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with that
idea. My problem is that this is a convoluted way of saying a
simple thing, twisted by its English origins.
You probably started with, "The bug in the hand died," and
transmogrophied it into, "The bug that is in the hand died."
Even if you were talking about two bugs, one in the hand and
the other in the bowl, saying, "The bug that is in the hand
died," that is the same thing as saying, "The bug died in the
hand."
But what if we meant that there were two bugs, one in the hand
and one in the bowl and we placed them both on the table and
now the one that had been in the hand died? It is still too
easy to get away from the locative:
Hegh ghew'e' 'uchpu'bogh ghop.
Okay, how about this: "In the bathroom, the father corrected the
son who had lied in the kitchen."
puchpa'Daq vutpa'Daq neppu'bogh puqloD lughmoH vav.
If your recollection of Okrand's rule is accurate, this is not
a legal sentence. If mine is accurate, it is legal.
> We do have
>
> loghDaq Suvrupbogh SuvwI'pu' chaH Hoch SuvwI'pu''e'.
> In space, all warriors are cold warriors. (TKW 33)
>
> but the {loghDaq} may not be part of the {Suvrupbogh SuvwI'pu'}, but rather
> modifying the main sentence, whose "verb" is {chaH}.
It would have to be. Otherwise, it would be saying that there
are no warriors who are not ready to fight in space. It makes a
lot more sense to say that all warriors who are in space are
ready to fight.
> SuStel
> Stardate 98057.8
>
charghwI'