tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 26 12:56:58 1993

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relative clauses (again)



>From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 12:47:30 EDT
>X-Mailer: UVa PCMail 1.8.4
>Content-Length: 1657


>On Aug 24,  7:58pm, Jacques Guy wrote:
>> Subject: Re: relative clauses (again)
>...
>> These constructions occurred to me, without thinking:
>> 
>> yaS vIlegh qIppu'bogh puq = I see the officer whom the child hit
>> yaS qIppu'bogh puq vIlegh = I see the child who hit the officer

Again, I also prefer the use of "-'e'" for such things, but here's a point
I think may have already been mentioned.  If you want to keep the
word-order as you have it, without stepping on people's sensibilities, you
can, by reversing the clauses (this may not work in all cases).  Thus, the
second sentence remains as it is, with the same meaning (perhaps with
ambiguity as to the head of the relative clause, which we can live with),
and the first sentence might become "yaS vIleghbogh qIppu' puq" -- "The
child hit the officer whom I see".  There are differences in connotation
and emphasis caused by the recasting, but it's still something to consider,
since they say pretty much the same thing.

~mark



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