tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 21 15:09:41 1994

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open can of worms



>Qu'vatlh!!!
 
>Okay, Guido#1,  Most Youthfull Smartass, You have got me.
 
>I looked through me AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE (4th ed) by
>Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman and I cannot find out what You are
>talking about jay'!

Gimme a second, DavidBarron (who BTW doesn't have a nice Klingon name I could
anagram). I'll clarify in a second...


>Meanwhile, the examples are incomplete and lack sufficient
>context to tell if they are restrictive or nonrestrictive. Most
>appear to be restrictive, but I could imagine complete
>sentences containing them for which the relative clause would
>be parenthetical, and so, nonrestrictive.

>> And adjectivals, for
>> that matter. 

>Again, I think you are working toward a level of subtlety that
>is not present in the language.

Yes. Relative clauses have proved ambiguous enough already. It doesn't
surprise me that perhaps they don't make the restrictive vs non-restrictive
distinction that *so* many other languages make.

[...]

>> I would also like to ask about how one would go about negating adverbials
and
>> clauses.

>Very carefully, of course.

Ah, very intriguing answer. Okrand did {batlh bIHeghbe'}, but without proper
context, that implies that the death itself doesn't occur. I suppose there
are always ways around doing clause negation:

"I didn't leave because my enemy was present", i.e., "I left (but) not
because my enemy was present": {SaH jaghwI' 'ach mumejmoHbe'pu' ghu'vam}

>> (If you're confused on any of these terms, you can look them up in
elementary
>> linguistics or grammar materials. 

>Or PC Grammar Checkers...

>> Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos

>charghwI'

You see, Dave (can I call you Dave, or should it be MrDave?), this all stems
from something that I wondered about way back in my ancient pre-InterNet
days, while I was still taking your correspondence course. I used the
constuction {Hoch wISovbogh}. I doubt you remember at all.

In short, I was (and still am) wondering if this meant "all that we know (and
no more)" OR if it meant "all/everything, which we, being the ultra-sentients
that we are, know". This distinction seems highly important in many cases.
It's still a rare concept to portray, but still...


Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos

Before I go, one big BTW, two questions of expressiveness:

1) Is there or was there ever a liquid equivalent to "feed", and if not, how
come?

2) Why isn't there a counterpart to {-oy} which would indicate feelings of
contempt or hatred?



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