tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 10 18:07:37 1995

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

• Index by Date
• Index by Thread
• Index by Author

Re: }} "in the restaurant where we ate"

• From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
• Subject: Re: }} "in the restaurant where we ate"
• Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 18:07:37 -0400 (EDT)

According to Alan Anderson:
> 
> yoDtargh writes:
> >...Sec. 6.2.3 gives "in the restaurant where we ate"...

> 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.

I do like this more than yoDtargh's suggestion, but I still
don't like it very much. The problem is that we have no
examples of a head noun acting as other than subject or object
of the verb defining the relative clause. This seems to be too
great a leap without something more substantive from Okrand to
consider it acceptable.

> 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.

Now, you are encountering a problem we've had for a long time
trying to use a relative clause for something other than the
subject or object of the main verb. Until Okrand TELLS us that
it is okay to do this, I think it really is not.

> 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.

Yep.

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

charghwI'
-- 

 \___
 o_/ \
 <\__,\
  ">   | Get a grip.
   `   |

• Prev by Date: Re: }} bombogh loS loD
• Next by Date: }} bombogh loS loD
• Prev by thread: }} "in the restaurant where we ate"
• Next by thread: }} jatlh HoD trI'Qal
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread
  • Author

Back to archive top level