tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 16 16:33:37 2004

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Re: headless {-bogh}?

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

From: "De'vID jonwI'" <[email protected]>

> >>>what is the {-bogh} in the following sentence referring to?
> >>><Dajatlhbogh vIyajlaHbe'
> >>>I find no match for what you just said. KCD
>
> QeS lagh:
> >>However, this sentence wasn't even used in the final language lab, IIRC.
>
> SuStel:
> >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?
>
> The problem is that we don't know how this recording might have
> been used in the Language Lab.  Perhaps the computer repeats to
> you the thing that you just said, and concatenates Okrand's
> recording to it.  For example, if I said "Blah blah", and the
> computer didn't recognize this as Klingon, it might play
> back my words followed by Okrand's: <"Blah blah" Dajatlhbogh
> vIyajlaHbe'> 'I can't understand your "Blah blah".'  In that
> case, the clause would not have been headless.

That doesn't hold water.  None of the rest of the language lab works that
way.  And even if you accept that it might be an unimplemented feature,
Okrand's English translation (which has its own sound file) doesn't work
like that.

It's pretty clear that Okrand was given "I don't understand what you said"
(or whatever his exact English quote was), and he came up with {Dajatlhbogh
vIyajbe'}.  The question is whether or not he intended to make a new rule,
or extend our understanding of relative clauses, by doing it.

SuStel
Stardate 4208.1

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