tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 30 09:06:19 1998
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Re: Locatives and {-bogh} (was Re: KLBC Poetry)
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: Locatives and {-bogh} (was Re: KLBC Poetry)
- Date: Fri, 30 Jan 98 08:23:05 EST
ja' SuStel:
>meQtaHbogh qachDaq Suv qoH neH.
>
>{qach} is the head noun of the relative clause, and the entire noun phrase
>is a locative.
Because {qachDaq} follows {meQtaHbogh}, it can't be the locative of
the relative clause. That leaves {qach} free to be the head noun
without requiring the person trying to understand the sentence to work
too hard to figure it out.
~mark did a good job of diagramming why this pattern makes sense. The
entire relative clause is presented before the {-Daq} shows up.
>Qe'Daq vIje'qangbogh qagh wISoplaH.
>
>{Qe'} is the head noun of the relative clause, and the entire noun phrase is
>a locative.
{Qe'Daq} comes before both {vIje'qangbogh} and {wISoplaH}, and wants
very much to be a locative of one of them. Its role is obvious. Even
if the speaker intends {Qe'} to be the head noun of {vIje'qangbogh},
the {-Daq} preempts that meaning before the verb is encountered.
~mark's diagrams showed the scrambled nature of the grammar here. The
{-Daq} suffix which is supposed to mark the locative of the main
clause occurs *inside* the relative clause. This insertion disrupts
the relative clause, and obscures the connection between the locative
and the main clause.
>Whether or not {meQtaHbogh qachDaq Suv qoH neH} is a fluke, Qermaq's
>sentence DOES fit the same pattern, only with the head noun as object
>instead of subject.
These sentences do NOT fit the same pattern. Qermaq's sentence splits
the locative indicator from the main clause, and breaks the relative
clause apart to insert it. Okrand's sentence leaves the relative
clause intact and has the locative indicator adjacent to the main
clause.
Type 5 noun suffixes are special. ~mark considers them to be more
like postpositions than like suffixes. They migrate to the *verb*
when it is used in an adjectival sense, which keeps the adjectival
"clause" intact and keeping the syntactic marker suffix next to the
main clause. I think this is why trying to mark the object of a
relative clause with a type 5 suffix other than {-'e'} won't work.
{-'e'} works because it *does* serve a purpose inside the relative
clause, and thus doesn't interfere with the clause's grammar. Other
type 5 suffixes on the *subject* occur at the very end of the clause,
after all of the clause's meaning has already been revealed, so they
don't make it any harder to understand.
-- ghunchu'wI'