tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 28 22:06:40 1997
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Re: Questions as sentences
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Questions as sentences
- Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 01:06:43 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- Priority: NORMAL
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 21:40:41 -0800 (PST) [email protected]
wrote:
> TKD 6.2.5 states: Klingon has two special pronouns, 'e' and net, which refer
> to the previous sentence as a whole.
>
> I, for one, consider a question as much a sentence as a statement is.
> Therefore, I still claim that {nuqDaq yuch Dapol 'e' luSovbe' puqpu'vetlh}
> is a proper conjoining into one compound sentence.
>
> peHruS
The problem is that you are trying to convert a question word
into a relative pronoun and Klingon doesn't have relative
pronouns. Instead, relative pronouns are implied in the {-bogh}
suffix of a verb in a relative clause.
Your overall "compound sentence" is a statement, not a question.
The "question" you are containing in your "compound sentence" is
actually a relative clause representing a noun. What do the
children not know? They don't know the place. What place? The
place you keep the chocolate. The relative clause adds specifying
detail to the noun which is the object of "know".
THAT is what bothers me about this construction. In a REAL
Sentence As Object construction, the whole sentence is the
object, not just a noun from that sentence. In my example {jIbom
'e' Sovbe' puqpu'vetlh,} the thing the children don't know is
not a noun. The only noun there is me, and I'm not the object of
"know". It is the combination of the subject and action of the
verb - the whole sentence - that they don't know. That is
Sentence As Object.
Your example could be restated with more interesting grammar as:
yuchlIj ngaSbogh Daq'e' Sovbe' puqpu'vetlh.
Those children don't know the place which contains your
chocolate.
No question. No sentence as object. Your meaning is contained in
its entirety here. It is a relative clause. In English, the
question word "where" is the same as the relative pronoun
"where". It is used both for relative clauses and questions. In
Klingon, these are not related concepts. They are grammatically
very different. You are confusing them.
That is why your position is rather unpopular here. You like it.
Krankor likes it. I don't like it. SuStel doesn't like it. A lot
of others don't like it. A few people ride the fence, but very
few defend it because, frankly, if you think about it very much,
it is not very easily defended. It falls apart when you realize
that just like a head noun is the subject or object of the main
verb and the relative clause, the answer to your question is only
word that is really the object of your Question As Object
construction. The whole sentence does not come across.
You are misconstructing a relative clause using question words.
Deal with it.
charghwI'