tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 18 07:52:07 2011

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[Tlhingan-hol] Use of -'e' with relative clauses

Philip Newton ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol ghojwI']

[Apologies for the tl;dr - executive summary: is something like {yaS
qIppu'bogh puq'e' vIlegh} possible in the sense of "I see the officer
whom the *CHILD* hit (rather than someone else doing the hitting)"?]

We have the type-5 noun suffix -'e' to "emphasize[] that the noun to
which it is attached is the topic of the sentence".

In some dialects, notably in {ta' Hol}, it must be used in certain
constructions, specifically in "X is Y" constructions where the
subject is not a pronoun (TKD 6.3): {puqpu' chaH qama'pu''e'} (plain
"X is Y"), {pa'DajDaq ghaHtaH la''e'} ("X is Y" with Y = a locative
construction).

In other dialects (notably in Morskan), this is not required
grammatically; there, the suffix -'e' _may_ be used in such a
construction, but has its usual topicalising meaning: they can
distinguish between {tera'ngan gha qama'} "The prisoner is a Terran"
and {tera'ngan gha qama''e'} "It's the prisoner who is a Terran",
while ta' Hol must use {tera'ngan ghaH qama''e'} for either meaning.

Now, we have the relative clause construction which uses the type-9
verbal suffix -bogh (TKD 6.2.3), as in "O V-bogh S".

Not mentioned in TKD, but proposed in usage and (as far as I know)
subsequently made official, is the ability to disambiguate which
constituent(?) of the sentence you are relativising, by using -'e'.
For example, {yaS qIppu'bogh puq} could mean either "The child who hit
the officer" or "The officer whom the child hit", and you can
disambiguate with {yaS qIppu'bogh puq'e'} for the first meaning and
{yaS'e' qIppu'bogh puq}.

Is this use of -'e' mandatory in such a case (where both subject and
object are represented by nouns)?

If not, is the use of -'e' as a topicaliser still possible?

Lest you think this is hypothetical, here is what prompted my question:

'ISqu' sent me (among others) a URL to the pictures she had taken at
qepHom wa'maHDIch recently; however, the link in her initial e-mail
was wrong, pointing to De'vID's pictures instead - a link he had sent
to (among others) the two of us.

My first impulse was to write this sentence (call it "S"): {mIlloghmey
qonta'bogh De'vID'e' bIHlaw'} -- "Those seem to be the pictures which
DAVID took".

On the other hand, putting a -'e' there made it look like the
disambiguator... in which case, it would have meant something along
the lines of "Those seem to be the Davids who took the pictures (and
who are incapable of using language)".

Would you have understood my sentence "S" in the way I intended it?

Would you agree that it is grammatically correct to word the thought that way?

Would {mIlloghmey qonta'bogh De'vID bIHlaw'} also work (with no -'e'
at all)? (Both in the sense of "being understandable" and "being
grammatical" - two separate questions, I think.)

What about {mIlloghmey'e' qonta'bogh De'vID'e' bIHlaw'} (with
disambiguating -'e' on the pictures and topicalising -'e' on David)?

Or is {mIlloghmey'e' qonta'bogh De'vID bIHlaw'} the only possibility?

I would not be surprised if there are some dialects where
disambiguators are required, others where they are optional, and still
others where - parallel to the Morskan case in "X is Y" constructions
- they are not possible and every -'e' carries only the topicalising
meaning. (And I wonder where ta' Hol fits in that continuum.)

My understanding is that -'e' as disambiguator is optional in ta' Hol,
and I would expect that pragmatics and context would make it clear
that I mean "the pictures that David took" rather than "the
non-language-using Davids that took the pictures" if I did use the
-'e' on {De'vID'e'} -- that is, that I was leaving off the optional
disambiguator and instead using topicalising {-'e'}. (Though it might
initially be garden-pathed, à la "The horse raced past the barn fell"
-- so maybe worth avoiding.)

nuq 'o vuDraj?

...pardon my Morskan. I mean, nuq 'oH vuDraj'e'? :)
-- 
Philip Newton <[email protected]>

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