tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 25 02:37:54 2004

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

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

jIghItlhpu':

>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.

mujangpu' Voragh:

>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'

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get around to this one.

Expanding a little on the example you gave above, would {SuDbogh 'ej wovbogh 
Dargh} and {romuluSngan Sambogh nejwI' 'ej HoHbogh} be acceptable?

Between {SuDbogh Dargh 'ej wovbogh} and {romuluSngan Sambogh 'ej HoHbogh 
nejwI'}, the main difference in terms of grammatical structure just seems to 
be one of the location of the head, and it would seem that the location of 
the head isn't too restricted. I'm not trying to push the envelope here, I 
just want to find out whether these two constructions are the same envelope.

Savan.

QeS lagh

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