[tlhIngan Hol] subject of the -bogh clause of a sao being the subject of another verb

[SuStel]

On 7/28/2020 11:21 AM, Will Martin wrote:
> I posted the more detailed critique less to be right than to expand on 
> a broader sense of where the limits are, knowing that if I was 
> overextending, you’d catch me and we’d all benefit from the more 
> detailed explanation.

Or you could, y'know, just ask.


> Trying to wrap my head around what he’s doing here, it seems that in 
> all cases except your favorite, he has worked optional word order so 
> that clauses that optionally could follow the main clause precede it, 
> instead, which stops what would otherwise encapsulate the first 
> sentence of SAO in the second sentence.

Nobody is talking about making the first sentence a dependent clause. 
Semantically, it never makes any sense to do so.


> In that “best of all” example, he breaks that rule, except that he 
> uses stanzas to make it clear where the SAO attaches itself.

Because it's part of a relative clause, the entirety of which is treated 
like any other noun phrase, just as TKD tells us to do: "The whole 
construction (relative clause plus head noun), as a unit, is used in a 
sentence as a noun."


> And that brings me to wonder to what extent paq’batlh is poetry, and 
> therefore not confined to the grammar we generally need to hold 
> ourselves to.

Sigh. You want prose?

*QeyHa'choHtaH tuj yoD 'e' botmeH cholHa'meH 'eDSeHcha baH Glenn 'e' ra'
*/Glenn commanded the repulsion thrusters be fired in order to prevent 
the heat shield from coming loose./

http://klingon.wiki/En/GoFlight

But this is only a transcript.

Voragh quoted a speech given by the translator of /paq'batlh/ which he 
believes was written by Okrand. The first line is

*tlhIHvaD paq chu' wImuch 'e' bochaw'mo' chequvmoH 'ej chebelmoH.*

And finally, there's no semantic reason why we SHOULDN'T do this. It 
makes perfect sense. *bIjatlh 'e' DamevDI'*/When you stop talking/ is a 
perfectly simple subordinate clause. We KNOW that when Okrand says 
"sentence" he means "OVS clause." We KNOW he's used it himself. We KNOW 
exactly what it means. The ONLY reason to question it is a demonstrably 
over-strict reading of TKD.


> I’m not arguing that we can’t accept this as canon. I’m just wondering 
> whether this is great canon for grammar in general, or if it hints at 
> a generalizable truth about the grammar, but poetically extends it 
> beyond spoken norm in that one example, since it uses a stanza — a 
> tool of poetry — to put the first sentence of SAO directly in front of 
> the verb it needs to be attached to, or whether the entire use of SAO 
> with Type-9-affixed verbs is poetic and not generalizable.

If there were just one instance of it in /paq'batlh,/ I'd agree that it 
must be referenced cautiously. But it's used ELEVEN TIMES in the body of 
the work with no indication whatsoever that it's poetic license, and 
it's used twice more in passages that are very likely to be Okrand's 
words. There's reasonable caution, and then there's obstinacy.


-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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