[tlhIngan Hol] {-bogh} {-bogh}'ed nouns and {-taHvIS}

[Will Martin]

On second thought, I think that this looks more like “God, who protects, while women are causing [someone] to be born,” at least as much as it means “God, who protects women, while [someone] is causing [someone] to be born.” 

What you seem to want to express is actually a nested relative clause:

God, who protects women, who give birth… while they give birth.

I don’t think you can nest relative clauses, especially since each relative clause has a different head noun.

It is true that you also want to convey that the protection happens while the birth happens, but you definitely seem to want to suggest that the god is protecting women, and that’s not what your Klingon sentence says. It just notes that whomever or whatever god is protecting is happening while women are giving birth.

And even then, you still have the problem of what it looks like in a complete sentence.

boghmoHtaHvIS be’pu’ Qanbogh Qun’e’ vIvuv.

I read that as, “I respect a protective God while women give birth.” It’s not clear that this god is protecting the women, and I don’t especially respect this god at other times. My respect happens during the birth.

I could also read it as “I respect a god who protects women, while somebody gives birth.” I don’t know who is giving birth, and I don’t respect this god any other time.

The issue is that {-taHvIS} makes {boghmoHtaHvIS be’pu’} a separate dependent clause, telling you the time anchor of some other verb. It’s a duration.

Unlike {Qun’e’} it is not a head noun of any relative clause, so as a noun, it works with one verb. Only a Head Noun of a Relative Clause functions with two verbs at the same time. So, either the woman is giving birth, or the woman is being protected by the god. She can’t be both at the same time.

Again, I recommend that you do the extra lifting to make your sentences easier to catch.

> On Mar 15, 2022, at 8:59 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> I want to say:
> 
> "A god who protects women while they are giving birth"
> 
> So I write:
> 
> boghmoHtaHvIS be'pu' Qanbogh Qun'e'
> 
> Is this correct? Something seems strange but I can't understand what.
> 
> --
> Dana'an 
> https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/
> Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
> _______________________________________________
> tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
> tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
> http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/attachments/20220315/1485cef7/attachment.htm>