tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Apr 10 07:27:00 2004

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Re: joj usage...

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

From: "Dar'Qang" <[email protected]>
> The main thing confusing me, I think, is that I see two parses that are
> plausible within the
> rules of the grammar, but the experts favor an implausible parse of using
> {je} to join two
> verb phrases.  Probably the best thing that I can do is describe the two
> parses that I see, and
> someone can point out the flaws:
>
> The first one:
>
> 1) two {-bogh} clauses
>
>       yoHbogh ghach "he who is brave"
>       matlhbogh ghach "he who is loyal"

You mean /ghaH/ "he, him."  Note that we don't have any examples of relative
clauses explicitly using pronouns as the head noun.

> 2) {je} joins nouns
>       [noun] [noun] je
>
> 3)  {-bogh} clause can be used anywhere a noun is used
>       yoHbogh gach matlhbogh gach je
>
> 4) pronouns not required
>       yoHbogh matlhbogh je
>
> 5) used as first noun in noun-noun
>       yoHbogh matlhbogh je SuvwI'
>
> "The he who is brave and he who is loyal warrior", which is the object of
> the rest of the sentence
> in the anthem.  Actually, I thought that this was clever of Dr. Okrand,
> since it reflects the
> highly styled "warrior brave and true" of the original.  That is, a
> structure that one wouldn't normally
> use in prose, but works in poem and song.

I think you're really stretching it to try to make it grammatical.  You'd
have us believe that /yoHbogh/ and /matlhbogh/ are both headless relative
clauses, joined together as nouns and used in a genitive construction with
/SuvwI'/?  I don't buy it.  I think it's just non-standard grammar used to
meet the meter requirements of the song.

> The other one:
>
> 1) {-bogh} clause
>       matlhbogh SuvwI'
> 2) {je} following verb means 'also'
>       matlhbogh je SuvwI'    "the warrior who is also loyal"
> 3) {-bogh} clause used as the head of another -bogh clause
>
>      yoHbogh matlhbogh je SuvwI'
>
> "the warrior who is brave and who is also loyal"  with some license on the
> ordering.

Ehhh . . . this one has more credibility, but I'm not convinced.

yoHbogh (matlhbogh je SuvwI')
(warrior who is also loyal) who is brave

It seems to be grammatical, but it doesn't seem to make much sense.  As you
say, the ordering is wrong.  And if correct, this would be, I think, our
only example of nested relative clauses.

SuStel
Stardate: 4275.4

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