tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 07 22:38:17 1997
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Re: Sentence as Object
ja' peHruS:
>I think I have found YOUR problem. You are tyring to say that {'e'}
>translates as "that" or "which" or "who", for example.
No, I am trying to say that the sentence you are trying to translate has
a noninterrogative "that" or "which" or "who" in it, and is thus unsuited
for translation with a Sentence As Object construction using a question.
>Okay, let's summarize. {qagh Sop 'Iv 'e' vISovbe'} does NOT mean "I do not
>know WHO eats the qagh." Rather, it means "Who eats the qagh? I do not know
>that."
But what does the pronoun "that" refer to in this second interpretation?
As you yourself continue to point out, {'e'} stands for the first sentence
in its entirety. But in your sentence, the word "that" is standing in for
the unknown qagh-eater. {'e'} doesn't work here.
#### #### #### ####
This is the crux of the argument against QAO and it bears repeating. In a
true Sentence As Object, {'e'} refers to the entire first sentence. In an
attempted Question As Object, {'e'} is trying to refer to the question word
itself. That's why a Question As Object (at least one like the examples you
and others have presented here) is not grammatical.
#### #### #### ####
The only reason a "Question As Object" pseudoconstruction can be understood
is because English (along with other languages) uses substantially similar
words as both interrogative and relative pronouns. A native speaker of
Klingon would have no such crutch, and would never be inclined to interpret
a question word as indicating a pronoun in a relative clause.
>Similarly, {Duj legh loD 'e' Sovbe' yaS} does NOT mean "The officer
>knows THAT the man sees the ship." Rather, it means "The man sees the ship;
>I know that."
Your translations are confused; lets consider {Duj legh loD 'e' Sov yaS}.
It can be translated literally into the stilted-sounding English sentences
"The man sees the ship; the officer knows that." A simple pass through a
smoothing-out process yields "The officer knows that the man sees the ship."
These two translations have *identical* meanings. They also mean exactly
the same thing as the Klingon sentence does; the translation succeeds.
[Verbs of saying are irrelevant to this debate.]
>maSovchu'meH mangachchuqjaj
>chaq tugh maHvaD QIj MO
SoHvaD QIj Marc Okrand 'e' DapoQchugh, DuchuHjaj.
-- ghunchu'wI'