tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 14 14:28:43 1998

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Re: relative clause attempt

On Wed, 14 Oct 1998 06:49:15 -0700 (PDT) K'ryntes 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> rIQ Suppu'bogh yaS.
> 
> The officer, who jumped, is injured.

Good job. As a very minor note, your English translation would 
be more accurate as "The officer who has jumped is injured." Two 
points:

1. The {-pu'} on {Suppu'bogh} does not indicate simple past. It 
indicates "perfective". As it happens, the present perfect 
really is a whole lot like the simple past in meaning, so some 
translations do make this slide. Okrand often does this. 
Meanwhile, for clarity of understanding what the grammar is 
really doing here, you should recognize that this is present 
perfect, not simple past.

2. There are two different kinds of relative clauses in English. 
When the relative pronoun is neuter, we use two different 
pronouns to indicate which one:

A: There are several glasses on the table. Only one is blue. It 
contains a message. "The glass that is blue contains a message."

B: There are several glasses. A couple of them are blue. "The 
glass, which is blue, contains a message."

Notice that in A, telling you that the glass is blue identifies 
the glass which contains the message. In B, telling you that the 
glass is blue is a parenthetical remark. It tells you something 
else about the glass that contains the message, but it does not 
specifically point out which glass contains the message.

Notice that we use commas in B, but not in A and we use "which" 
in B and "that" in A. This is "correct" English grammar. A lot 
of people are sloppy on this particular point.

Meanwhile, we don't have two different relative pronouns for 
people. Similar examples would be:

C: A captain is at a party where several captains are attending. 
He is the only one who is drunk. Only he knows a secret. "The 
captain who is drunk knows the secret."

D: Same scene, except that it is a REAL party and several of the 
captains are drunk, so telling you that the captain is drunk 
tells you something about the captain, but it doesn't identify 
the captain. The comment that he is drunk is parenthetical. "The 
captain, who is drunk, knows the secret."

The only written difference between these is the presence or 
absence of commas. When spoken, the emphasis is a bit different, 
since the D example is, well, parenthetical. It describes the 
captain, but it doesn't identify him.

So, the way you wrote your English translation, the fact that 
this officer jumped is parenthetical and does not identify the 
officer. Perhaps several officers jumped and only one was 
injured. You are just saying that an officer is injured, and, by 
the way, that officer also jumped. The two statements about the 
officer are probably not all that connected.

You should drop the commas if you intended to express that the 
jumping of the officer set him apart so that if I look at all 
the officers, I should attend to the one who jumped, because 
that officer and only that officer is the one I'm talking about 
when I say that the officer is injured.

In Klingon, we have no such division in types of relative 
clause. The examples I've noticed tend toward the exclusive 
type, where the head noun is identified by the relative clause. 
Perhaps there are also examples of parenthetical relative 
clauses that I have not noticed, or perhaps the grammar doesn't 
care and it is a coincidence that the examples have been 
exclusive and not parenthetical. I'm not sure.

So, when you translate the Klingon, generally prefer "that" over 
"which", despite Okrand's own translations that use the wrong 
word, and don't use the commas, unless you want to boldly go 
into the assumption that parenthetical relative clauses do exist 
in Klingon, even though we have not seen any.

Hmm. Maybe Kahless's reference is parenthetical? Is it "Kahless, 
who happens to be unforgettable" or is it "Kahless, not just any 
Kahless, but the one who is unforgettable". Opinions?

charghwI' 'utlh

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