tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 22 06:33:44 2004

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Re: Headless relatives and {SuDbogh Dargh 'ej wovbogh}

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

From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>

> While fixing up the section on multiple adjectives on the "Common Grammar
> Problems" Wiki page, I just had a rather ground-shaking thought (or so I
> believed) with regard to the acceptability of headless relative clauses in
> Klingon. While we all say that
>
> {Dajatlhbogh vIyajbe'}
>
> is clearly a headless relative (and therefore somewhat bizarre), I was
just
> reading through KGT on adjectival verbs, and noticed the construct
{SuDbogh
> Dargh 'ej wovbogh}.
>
> Now, from a grammatical point of view, the conjunction {'ej} would seem to
> signify that {wovbogh} is grammatically separate from {SuDbogh Dargh}. But
> if {wovbogh} *is* grammatically separate, it therefore lacks an explicit
> head; the head noun is assumed to be {Dargh}, which has been left behind
in
> the clause with {SuDbogh}. I know that this isn't as blatantly headless as
> {Dajatlhbogh vIyajbe'}, but from a grammatical point of view {wovbogh}
would
> appear to be headless.
>
> Is this evidence that headless relatives might not be quite so rare as we
> suppose, or is the connection between clauses with {'ej} somewhat more
solid
> than just that between two sentences?

There are about eight examples of "sentence conjunctions" joining
non-sentence verb phrases in our canon of Klingon.  I once posted them to
the list; I'm not prepared to do that now.  It is quite clear to me that the
distinction between a verbal phrase and a sentence in Klingon is minimal.

SuDbogh Dargh 'ej wovbogh
tea that is blue/green/yellow and light

SuD Dargh 'ej wov.
The tea is blue/green/yellow and light.

In /SuDbogh Dargh 'ej wovbogh/, you have two relative clauses that have
exactly the same relation to the head noun /Dargh/.

(By the way, /SuD 'ej wov/ really means, "It is yellow.")

SuStel
Stardate 4308.1

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