tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 23 20:41:23 1997
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Re: Question as object
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>Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 20:44:31 -0800 (PST)
>From: "Neal Schermerhorn" <[email protected]>
>
>Now, let's look at it this way - How *do* we express the sentence "I know
>who killed the captain."? Well, the basic sentence is "I know (him/her)" -
><vISov>. Who and whom are expressed using -bogh. "the person who killed the
>captain" - <HoD HoHbogh ghot'e'> - now we get, by assembling the pieces -
><HoD HoHbogh ghot'e' vISov>. Plain And Simple.
>
>Now, since this translates the concept SO WELL, my question for all of you
>is this - Why find another way to do it? This way is unarguably correct,
>while the QAO supposition is being argued against by the most experienced
>Klingon speakers ever. Does this send a message to any of you? The relative
>clause construction IS a superior tool for saying "I know who killed the
>captain". Even if you were to allow for the QAO supposition to be
>acceptable, the -bogh version is simply superior.
Because it doesn't. Consider again, "ratlhbogh ghot wuq HoD." If the
captain chose Worf, could we say "wo'rIv wuq HoD"? Can the captain decide
a person? OK, we can replace "wuq" with "wIv", I suppose. But what if the
captain chooses, but the lieutenant gets to suggest? "ratlhbogh ghot chup
Sogh"? How can you suggest a person? You can suggest that a given person
be the one to remain ("ratlh wo'rIv 'e' chup Sogh"), but I'm not saying
that. I'm saying that the lieutenant gets to suggest the answer to the
question "who stays"? Or "I have heard who murdered the emperor." I
didn't actually hear the person, we may never have been anywhere near each
other. What I heard was the answer to that question: the murderer's
identity. "The lieutenant learned what fueled the ship." It's not "the
captain learned the substance that fueled the ship". If the substance is
stale kevas, how do you learn kevas? You learn the identity of the
substance, which is not the same thing.
Is there an answer to this that doesn't require QAO? Maybe. But it is NOT
as simple as you are making it out to be: an ordinary relative clause
doesn't cut it.
~mark
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