tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 14 07:42:27 2006
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Re: Type 5s as relative heads
QeS wrote:
>While looking for examples for my previous email, I came across this little
>gem from TKW again:
>
> meQtaHbogh qachDaq Suv qoH neH (TKW 111)
> Only a fool fights in a burning house.
>
>My question is: What on earth are we supposed to do with that? It doesn't
>parse neatly (I would have expected {meQtaHvIS}), and Okrand has pretty much
>explicitly said that indirect objects don't work well with {-bogh}:
>
>Okrand: I don't think Klingon fits into this [relative clause accessibility]
> hierarchy. Well, it does, if you want to look at it that way. I couldn't
> make the {bogh} thing work for me with anything other than subject or
> object.
>...
>HQ: So only the subject or object of a verb can be the headnoun of a
> relative clause. It doesn't allow possessing nouns either?
>MO: Right. (HQ v4n2p5)
I suppose it depends on your definition but I don't see {meQtaHbogh
qachDaq} as an indirect object, just a subordinate clause. I'm not sure I
see your point, but {qach} *is* the subject of the verb {meQ} in that
clause: "a house which is burning, a house that burns".
>That was in 1995. TKW was released in 1996. I've also found this text from
>S99 (1993) which, I have to be honest, I've been having some trouble
>parsing, but which seems to contain another relative clause whose head is a
>noun plus {-Daq}. My translation is underneath:
>
> qIb HeHDaq, 'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh lenglu'meH He ghoSlu'bogh
> retlhDaq 'oHtaH.
> On the edge of the galaxy, they are beside a travelled path in
> order to journey in regions of the galaxy which are unknown. (S99)
>
>First off, is my translation right?
You're only looking at part of the text. Here's SkyBox's English text
(which presumably Okrand translated into Klingon) and the complete translation:
loS... qIb HeHDaq, 'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh lenglu'meH He ghoSlu'bogh
retlhDaq 'oHtaH. HaDlu'meH, QuSlu'meH, SuDlu'meH lojmIt Da logh Hop Hut
tengchaH. vaj loghDaq lenglaHtaH Humanpu'. veH Qav 'oH logh'e'.
It waits... on the edge of the galaxy, beside a passage to unknown
regions of the universe, space station Deep Space Nine is the gateway
for the exploration, intrigue and enterprise that mark the continuation
of the human adventure into space--the final frontier. (card 01)
I've always been a little confused by this card too, probably because the
English was a single long complicated sentence. Okrand had to render it
into five shorter Klingon sentences.
>Thirdly, is a relative clause like that in ?{Qe'Daq vIparbogh qaqIHpu'}
>"I met you in a restaurant I didn't like" something that you would
>expect or accept in conversational Klingon?
I would accept this: {Qe'Daq vIparbogh} "in the restaurant that I dislike"
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons