[tlhIngan Hol] {-Daq} and {-bogh} and {Sumbogh} and {Hopbogh}

[Will Martin]

Apologies for my previous submission. Switched Email accounts and didn’t have all the other entries in this long thread marked as read…

It would help if we used more standard grammatical terms. A noun is never {-boghed}. It’s a Head Noun of a Relative Clause. The verb is {-boghed}.

The rule is that a Head Noun ALWAYS needs to be either the Subject or Object of the Relative Clause (the Subject or Object of the verb with {-bogh}). That head noun can have a {-Daq} on it, but the context of the {-Daq} is always applied to the Main Clause, not the Relative Clause.

Nouns and Noun Phrases tend to be Subject or Object, revealed by its location and the absence of a Type 5 suffix most of the time ({-‘e’} being the most common exception), or the noun or noun phrase tend to appear at or near the beginning of the sentence with a Type 5 suffix telling us what it’s function is. {-Daq} is a Type 5 noun suffix.

So, it’s okay to have a Head Noun function as a Locative IN THE MAIN CLAUSE, but it can’t be anything except Subject or Object IN THE RELATIVE CLAUSE. The Head Noun acts as a Noun in both clauses, but its grammatical function is less limited in the Main Clause than in the Relative Clause.

Is that making SuStel’s repeated explanation any clearer?

There are a lot of unique things about Relative Clauses. Usually, we’re talking about nouns or noun PHRASES. The relative clause is the only dependent clause that acts like a noun phrase. It consists of at least a Head Noun and a verb with {-bogh}, though it can have additionally have other elements of a whole sentence, and, like a noun phrase, it goes wherever the noun would go in the Main Clause. It’s a mini-sentence encapsulated in a larger sentence, and the point where it is encapsulated is the location of the Head Noun as it appears in the Main Clause.

So, you can always read or hear the Main Clause as a complete sentence WITH THE HEAD NOUN, omitting the Relative Clause. So, if that Head Noun is a locative, it is a locative FOR THE MAIN CLAUSE.

AFTER YOU HAVE THE SENTENCE WITH THE HEAD NOUN IN IT, you can wrap that Relative Clause around that Head Noun as it would go in a separate sentence, with the single condition that you can’t change the suffixes on the Head Noun AS IT APPEARED IN THE MAIN CLAUSE in order to fit in the Relative Clause. If the Head Noun’s suffixes don’t jive with the verb of the Relative Clause, this is not a problem. Since the Head Noun is ALWAYS subject or object of the Relative Clause, you know whether it’s subject or object of the verb with {-bogh} because of the order of the Head Noun and the verb with {-bogh}.

The primary grammatical function of the Head Noun is its participation in the Main Clause. The verb with {-bogh} adds meaning to the Head Noun, somehow identifying it as different from similarly named nouns that don’t fit the truth stated by the Relative Clause.

“The ship in which I fled” is a problem because “ship in which I fled” is a Relative Clause, and “ship” is trying to be the Head Noun of that clause, but it can’t because it is not the Subject (the thing fleeing, since *I* am the one fleeing), nor is it the object of the Relative Clause (because I’m not fleeing the ship. I’m fleeing IN the ship).

Relative Clauses are among the most potentially complex grammatical forms in Klingon, which, by its nature, favors simple grammar. Since grammatical function of nouns can be determined by either its location or its Type 5 suffix, the one limiting factor so that you can figure out WTF is going on in a sentence with a fully developed Relative Clause is that the form of the Head Noun (especially what kind of Type 5 noun suffix it has, other than {-‘e’}) needs to exist in the context of the Main Clause, leaving the Relative Clause to explain it’s use of the Head Noun by position alone, limiting it to being either the Subject or Object of the verb with {-bogh}.

If it didn’t have that limit, you could very easily write a sentence with a Relative Clause that would be impenetrable to the listener. I mean, you can do that anyway, but at least you have to work at it more than you would if you could have a Head Noun doing something other than subject or object of the verb with {-bogh}.

pItlh

charghwI’ ‘utlh
(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)




> On Feb 13, 2022, at 7:24 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> jIH:
> > The sentence of {tawDaq Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH vIlegh} which I wrote earlier in the thread,
> > is indeed correct (exhibiting the ambiguity which has already been described). In one interpretation
> > of the sentence we have a relative clause which includes the {-Daq}, i.e the relative clause of
> > {tawDaq Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH}. But the important thing to notice (and I'm talking to myself right now..)
> > is that there's no {-bogh}'ed noun which has been {-Daq}'ed; the {-bogh}'ed noun is the
> > {Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH} and right before it, a {tawDaq} just happens to be grazing.
> 
> And this is what's happening in the {ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj} and {yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'} paq'batlh sentences.
> 
> There's no {-bogh}'ed noun which has been {-Daq}'ed; the {-bogh}'ed noun is the {vavwI'} which being {-bogh}'ed becomes {ghaHtaHbogh vavwI'}, and the {Hoch tlhIngan} which being {-bogh}'ed becomes {ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'}. In both cases, after the {-bogh}ing, there's just a {ghe'torDaq}/{yuQDaq} which just happens to be grazing in the front.
> 
> And the ambiguity exists in the first sentence as well.
> 
> The {ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj} may be understood either as "may we honor my father who is in hell", or "may we honor in hell my father who is being somewhere unspecified".
> 
> However, as far as the second sentence is concerned, there is no ambiguity since the {Hoch tlhIngan'e'} is not only the subject of the {ghaHtaHbogh}, but the subject of the preceding {qIm} as well:
> 
> qeylISvaD jach 'ej beyDaj luqImmo'
> yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'
> 
> Obviously, since the given translation goes: "For every Klingon on the planet Followed her cry for Kahless" the {lu-} on the {luqImmo'} is wrong, but who cares about this right now..
> 
> --
> Dana'an
> https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ <https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/>
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