tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 10 03:18:43 1995

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}} "in the restaurant where we ate"



yoDtargh writes:
>...Sec. 6.2.3 gives "in the restaurant where we ate" as
>an example of a relative clause, but that section does not give an example
>of a relative clause using "where".  If you could make such a
>construction using {-bogh}, it would probably come out like:
>*maSoppu'bogh Qe'Daq  (in the restaurant where we ate)
>
>I've never seen a canon example of this type of construction, but TKD
>seems to imply such a constuction may be possible and it doesn't appear to
>be ambiguous.  I would like to hear some input from others on whether or not
>this type of construction seems feasable.

I'd never noticed that 6.2.3 includes "where" -- thanks for mentioning it!
The actual clause given is "the restaurant where we ate," without an "in".
But wouldn't "the restaurant where we ate" be {Qe'Daq maSopbogh}?  This is
"we ate in the restaurant" plus the relative-clause suffix.  This is only
a little ambiguous; if I meant "we who ate in the restaurant" I probably
would have said {Qe'Daq maSopbogh maH} instead.

What if I want to talk about "the restaurant where we ate worms"?  Saying
{Qe'Daq qagh wISopbogh} seems to imply "the worms which we ate in the
restaurant", and {-'e'} can't be put on the same word as {-Daq} in order
to identify it as the topic of the relative clause.  I might try to say
{Qe'Daq qagh wISopbogh maH} with neither {qagh} nor {maH} marked as the
head noun, but this seems very stilted, and even adds to the ambiguity.

There's one more problem which I can't resolve.  When I try to say
"IN the restaurant where we ate," I seem to need another {-Daq}, and
I don't see a place to put it.

 -- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj





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