tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 20 02:09:26 1997

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"The ship in which I fled"

  Hereinafter TH = tlhIngan-Hol email group.
  Excuse me raising this topic yet again. The only book that I have that seems
to have information re how to use {-'e'} is TKD, which says only:-
  (1) TKD 3.3.5 says that on a noun it emphasizes that noun.
  (2) TKD 6.3 describes its use with a noun which is the subject of "be".
  (3) TKD said nothing about -'e' in relative clauses, but TH says that Okrand
said orally that -'e' can be used to mark the head-word in relative clauses.

  TKD when describing relative clauses said that "the head-word can either
follow or precede the noun", but did not seem to me to say explicitly that the
head-word must be subject or object; all nouns in a sentence are somewhere
before or after the verb. His examples, e.g. (puq qIppu'bogh yaS}, have no
nouns except subject and object, but to me do not seem to say explicitly
whether or not the asterisked translations hereinunder are valid:-

    {pa'Daq verengan targh HoHpu'bogh loD}
    (A) the man who killed the Ferengi's targ in the room.
    (B) the Ferengi's targ which the man killed in the room.
    (C) **the Ferengi whose targ the man killed in the room.
    (D) **the room in which the man killed the Ferengi's targ.
  With -'e' these would become:-
    (a) {pa'Daq verengan targh HoHpu'bogh loD'e'}     - subject
    (b) {pa'Daq verengan targh'e' HoHpu'bogh loD}     - object
    (c) **{pa'Daq verengan'e' targh HoHpu'bogh loD}   - genitive / owner @
    (d) **{pa'Daq'e' verengan targh HoHpu'bogh loD}   - with preposition
      (@ = {smichut} for any Hebrew grammarians out there.}
  Before rule (3) came out, by rule (1) any of (a)(b)(c)(d) would have seemed
to me to mean any of (A)(B)(C)(D) but emphasizing the noun with the -'e', and
TKD does not seem to me to say explicitly that (c)(d) would have been illegal.
  By rule (3), (a) to (d) now mean (A) to (D) respectively. I was once told
off by a pabpo' for using type (c) in a message in Klingon about blowtorches.
    **{pa'Daq'e' verengan targh HoHpu'bogh loD vISay'qu'nISmoHpu'} would be
 "I had to sterilize the room in which the man had killed the Ferengi's targ."
  Please what was Okrand's exact wording of his oral ruling re usage (3)?

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