tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 30 15:21:59 1998
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Re: Another question
Patrick Masterson wrote:
>
> I have noticed that there seems to be some debate on using -'e' to flag
> the head noun in a relative clause. This doesn't seem to be a problem,
> unless you use a pronoun as a verb, in which case the subject gets a
> -'e'.
> Let's say I want to write "The Terran is the officer who got hit by the
> guest." How would I do that?
Short answer: You can't. Klingon doesn't have a true passive voice. I rather
suspect this was an intentional omission on Okrand's part: Klingons may prefer
acting to being acted upon. One way around this is to make it a relative
(active) clause -- {yaS qIpbogh meb} "the officer whom the guest hit" -- as
you've done.
>
> 1. Don't flag the head noun and hope there's no confusion:
> yaS qIpbogh meb ghaH tera'ngan'e'.
> (Is it "The Terran is the guest who hit the officer." or "The Terran is
> the officer who got hit by the guest."?)
Literally, the former: "The Terran is the officer whom the guest hit" - though
you could get away with using the passive ("The Terran is the officer who got
hit by the guest") in an English translation.
You're right, though. {yaS qIpbogh meb ghaH tera'ngan'e'} is ambiguous: is
the
Terran the guest, or the officer? If the context doesn't make it clear - and
it generally does, BTW - one way to avoid the problem is simply to reverse the
sentence:
tera'ngan ghaH yaS qIpbogh meb'e'
The guest who hit the officer is the Terran.
tera'ngan ghaH yaS'e' qIpbogh meb
The officer whom the guest hit is the Terran.
in order to make the topicalized subject clear. Another "trick" is to break
this up into two independent clauses or sentences:
tera'ngan wImuH - yaS qIpbogh meb'e' ghaH.
We executed the Terran; he's the guest who hit the officer.
tera'nganvetlh Dalegh'a'? yaS'e' qIpbogh meb ghaH.
Do you see that Terran. He's the officer whom the guest hit.
Basically, combine this with your next statement about the Terran (i.e. "What
about him?"). Not perfect, but it works without inventing a lot of
idiosyncratic new grammar or formulae, like double topics.
_________________________________________________________________________
Voragh "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons lis est." Horace (Ars Poetica)