tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 09 20:25:30 2008
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Re: Relative clause fun
On Oct 9, 2008, at 10:35 PM, d'Armond Speers wrote:
> However, in other languages there are other options for which
> element of the relative clause can be the head noun, besides just
> the subject and object. I’m wondering whether their omission from
> TKD is just absence of evidence, or evidence of absence. (I.e.,
> are they possible but not described, or are they not possible
> because they are not described?)
Non-subject, non-object head nouns *are* mentioned in TKD, with the
specific phrase being "the restaurant where we ate." They're not
explained, however, and no Klingon examples are given in the
accompanying text.
If you don't a priori deny the possibility of a Klingon example, the
perpetually problematic {jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe'} from the Useful
Klingon Expressions appendix seems explicable as exactly such an
example.
I've played around with disambiguation, and I think it's potentially
doable with {-'e'} on the noun which is *not* the head noun. The
prohibition on Type 5 suffixes on the first noun of a N-N
construction is a clue to the intended interpretation.
-- ghunchu'wI'