tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 22 09:17:45 2004

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

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

QeS lagh wrote:
>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.

Here's another example, also from KCD:

   romuluSngan Sambogh 'ej HoHbogh nejwI'
   Romulan hunter-killer probe

By your analysis, {Sambogh} would be headless.  My feeling is that the 
"head" of both is simply displaced.  Since {Sambogh 'ej HoHbogh} is 
relatively short and immediately precedes {nejwI'}, there's no problem with 
these two tightly linked verbs.  IOW this is a deleted redundancy:

   romuluSngan Sambogh [nejwI'] 'ej HoHbogh nejwI'

If you don't like this use of {'ej}, another way we've seen is to link the 
two {-bogh}ed verbs with {je} as if they were nouns, as in this example 
from the Anthem:

   yoHbogh matlhbogh je SuvwI' Say'moHchu' may' 'Iw
   The blood of battle washes clean the warrior brave and true.

which even more people have found bizarre.

>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?

   romuluSngan Sambogh 'ej HoHbogh nejwI'
   Romulan hunter-killer probe (KCD)

BTW, note that {romuluSngan} is part of an extended noun+noun phrase, 
modifying the "head" noun {nejwI'} in the "clause" following {'ej}:  it's a 
Romulan probe (i.e. of Romulan design and/or manufacture) which is how it's 
used in the KCD game.  (From a strictly grammatical point of view, 
exclusive of the context of the game, an alternative analysis could be that 
{romuluSngan} is the object of both {Sambogh} and {HoHbogh}: i.e. the probe 
both seeks and then kills Romulans specifically.)



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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