tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 02 10:14:35 2004

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Re: ghelmeH mu'tlhegh'e' Sayu'

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

>From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
>
>"The first one I nailed him with was our lovely QAO.  Uh-oh.  You can not
>use a 'question' as an object; but... it is not known yet if Klingon
>question words can act as one of those ... relative pronoun... The safest
>thing for now would be to recast if possible." (DloraH, personal
>conversation with Okrand, May 1998)

With respect to Okrand and DloraH, one of them has got something wrong.  The 
question words are not relative pronouns.  What relative pronouns do in 
English is what relative clauses with {-bogh} do in Klingon.  In English, 
the pronoun "who" (in its accusative form "whom") is used to relate a 
relative clause: "The officer whom I saw."  In Klingon, {-bogh} does this.  
{yaS vIleghbogh}.  The word {'Iv} has nothing to do it.

I think DloraH's original question may have been about sentences like "Which 
weapon do you use?"  Some people wanted to say *{nuq nuH Dalo'?}.  Maybe 
this is the usage that Okrand failed to comment on.  Certainly it is 
correct, according to all the rules we know, to say {nuH DaneHbogh yIwIv} 
"Choose the weapon that you want."

But for the point in question, this is neither here nor there.  "What do you 
want me to say?" isn't using a relative pronoun.  It uses an entirely 
different grammatical structure than we have available in Klingon, and it's 
a bit complex.  There simply isn't anything like it in Klingon, and we 
*have* to recast it.

Since we're recasting, we should recast in a way that is legal in Klingon.  
If Okrand is right, and questions cannot be objects of verbs, then we know 
we cannot make this *{nuq vIjatlh DaneH}.  We have to recast it another way. 
  At this point, the speaker has a number of options available to him.  I've 
already give a couple.  Here's another that may or may not be appropriate 
given the circumstances:

     jIjatlh; nuq DaneH?
     I will speak; what do you want?

The point is that there is no absolutely right answer; say what you mean, 
and don't worry too much about a translation formula.

>Relative clauses in Klingon are formed with {-bogh}, thus *{nuq vIjatlh
>DaneH} would probably need to be recast as something like {mu'tlhegh 
>vIjatlh
>DaneHbogh yIngu'}. Longer, but error-free.

Hmm.  Something about this one bothers me.  I think it'd have to be 
something like *{mu'tlhegh vIjatlhbogh DaneHbogh yIngu'}.  In your sentence, 
it looks like you're asking to identify {mu'tlhegh vIjatlh}, which isn't a 
noun phrase, rather than a {mu'tlhegh}.  "Choose the {mu'tlhegh vIjatlh} 
that you want."  It doesn't work.

SuStel
Stardate 4502.9

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