tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 18 11:54:33 2011
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Use of -'e' with relative clauses
On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Philip Newton <[email protected]> wrote:
> [Apologies for the tl;dr - executive summary: is something like {yaS
> qIppu'bogh puq'e' vIlegh} possible in the sense of "I see the officer
> whom the *CHILD* hit (rather than someone else doing the hitting)"?]
While you could probably justify trying it, I don't think anyone would
understand it that way.
> Is this use of -'e' mandatory in such a case (where both subject and
> object are represented by nouns)?
The ability to leave the ambiguity unresolved is one of my favorite
corners of Klingon grammar.
> My first impulse was to write this sentence (call it "S"): {mIlloghmey
> qonta'bogh De'vID'e' bIHlaw'} -- "Those seem to be the pictures which
> DAVID took".
>
> Would you have understood my sentence "S" in the way I intended it?
Nope.
> Would you agree that it is grammatically correct to word the thought that way?
Grammatically correct? Maybe. The right thing to do? Definitely not.
> nuq 'o vuDraj?
>
> ...pardon my Morskan. I mean, nuq 'oH vuDraj'e'? :)
In this particular case, I think the resolution to your dilemma is obvious:
mIlloghmey[vam] qonta' De'vID'e'.
-- ghunchu'wI'
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