tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 29 14:21:53 1998

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Re: Ke'Plak

On Mon, 28 Sep 1998 15:06:29 -0700 (PDT) Neal Schermerhorn 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> ghItlh charghwI':
> 
> >We do know that relative pronouns do not exist. If you think
> >otherwise, just point to the section in TKD that describes
> >them. The closest thing you'll get is the relative clause which
> >works through a verb suffix, not a pronoun.
> 
> I am surprised, charghwI'. You must know that one cannot prove non-existence
> through logic. Since we agree that TKD is not a complete description of
> every point of Klingon, we also must agree that lack of mention is no proof
> of lack of existence. We simply do not know whether there is a relative
> pronoun or not. I, and you, believe it is highly unlikely, but I do not
> know. Unless you have kidnapped Maltz, neither do you.
> 
> Qermaq

Others have responded to this and I appreciate it, but there's 
another angle I'd like to express:

If tomorrow Maltz gave us a list of relative pronouns, unless he 
also explained some new grammatical construction we have not 
seen yet, we would not know how to use them. The relative clause 
that has been described to us has no place for a relative 
pronoun.

nger vIHarbogh DaHarbe'law'.

You apparently don't believe the theory which I believe.

In English, the relative pronoun is "which". That meaning is 
conveyed to us in Klingon with the verb suffix {-bogh}. There is 
no place for a pronoun meaning "which" in this grammatical 
construction. If we had a pronoun meaning "which" in Klingon, 
we'd have to use it in some OTHER grammatical construction. 
Meanwhile, that would give us TWO DIFFERENT grammatical 
constructions for relative clauses.

The likelihood that this is the case in Klingon is rather small. 
Redundancy is common in Klingon biology, but not in grammar.

charghwI' 'utlh

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