tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 15 09:25:23 2004

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Re: headless {-bogh}?

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>

> ghItlhpu' SIvten:
>
> >what is the {-bogh} in the following sentence referring to?
> ><Dajatlhbogh vIyajlaHbe'
> >I find no match for what you just said. KCD

[...]

> I sometimes wonder, though, whether an explicit pronoun can't itself be
the
> head (and therefore the above is a usage of a normal agreement marker as a
> full pronoun, thus another elision).

If you elide the pronoun, it isn't explicit.

> While I suspect that only nouns are
> possible, maybe someone more expert can clarify: Can explicit pronouns be
> the heads of relative clauses, or only true nouns?

There are no canon examples of this.

> However, this sentence wasn't even used in the final language lab, IIRC.

I find this to be a very weak reason to ignore the example.  I very much
doubt that the sentence was unused because of any desire of Okrand's.
Okrand was recorded saying it; how much more canonical can you get?

Anyway, it's not like it's hard to understand.  If I said,

mumble-mumble Dajatlhbogh vIyajbe',

everyone who heard me would understand that whatever it is you said, I
didn't understand it.  Think of a headless relative clause as an incomplete
sentence, if you like.

> In
> short, headless relatives are a rare beast in Klingon, if they do in fact
> exist at all. While they *appear* to be comprehensible to
Standard-speakers,
> I steer well clear of them due to their rarity (as I said, this is the
only
> example we have), and I'd generally advise others to do the same.

Even if we accept headless relative clauses as grammatical, this is still
good advice.  Enough people will freak out if you use them that you probably
just want to ignore them.

SuStel
Stardate 4204.5

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