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<p>A conversation on DuoLingo got me thinking. Okrand said long ago
that he could not get the head noun of a relative clause to fit
anywhere except as the subject or object of that clause. We accept
this as meaning Klingon doesn't allow this, though all Okrand
really said was he couldn't see how to do it.</p>
<p>Consider the text of <i>The Klingon Dictionary:</i> "The whole
construction (relative clause plus head noun), as a unit, is used
in the sentence as a noun." I don't know about you, but this is
not the mental image of relative clauses I have in my head. I
imagine the main clause as a line, the head noun "pinned" to its
place on that line, and the relative clause dangling off of the
pinned head noun. But the text of TKD may suggest a different
picture: the head noun plus verbal clause may be an enclosed
package, no dangling, and whatever is part of the relative clause
is isolated from interaction with the main clause. The main
sentence, in other words, doesn't care what part the relative
clause is the head noun; all it cares about is that something
called "relative clause" is acting as a noun in a particular spot.<br>
</p>
<p>For example, if <b>Duj vIleghpu'bogh</b> <i>ship which I saw</i>
is said to be equal to <i>X,</i> then we can insert it into a
main clause <b>vIngu'laH</b><i> I can identify it</i> like so: <i><b>X</b></i><b>
vIngu'laH</b> <i>I can identify X.</i> As far as the main
clause is concerned, <i>X</i> is a black box, internally any noun
phrase it wants to be.</p>
<p>So, let's suppose we start with a phrase, <b>DujDaq jIHaw'</b><i>
I flee on a ship.</i> Let's us further suppose... and bear with
me here... that we don't have to make the head noun the subject or
object of the relative clause. What if we can say <b>DujDaq jIHaw'bogh</b><i>
ship on which I flee.</i> Being the only noun in the clause,
it's the only candidate for head noun. Let's suppose that it is.
Just suppose.</p>
<p>Now just take the noun phrase as a black box and stick it into
the main sentence, <b>vIngu'laH</b><i> I can identify it.</i><b>
</b>We get: <b>DujDaq jIHaw'bogh vIngu'laH</b> <i>I can identify
the ship in which I fled. </i>As far as the main sentence goes,
this is not a locative, just a regular noun phrase.<br>
<i></i></p>
<p>Yes, yes, I realize that the listener has no idea that <b>DujDaq
jIHaw'bogh</b> is supposed to be a unit and that I'm not
actually identifying something while I'm on a ship. I remember
that Okrand didn't agree to this in his interview. All I'm saying
is, it doesn't <i>actually</i> contradict TKD, and Okrand didn't
<i>actually</i> say you can't do it. The phrasing used in TKD
makes such a construction not completely impossible.</p>
<p>There's one major problem with this idea: if you need to use
main-sentence syntactic suffixes on the relative clause, you have
to attach them to the head noun, which means the main sentence <i>does</i>
see the inner parts of the relative clause, so it's not really a
black box after all.</p>
<p>Note: I'm not advocating for this idea here. I'm just publicly
speculating. The Ship In Which I Fled Problem is one of those
things that I constantly run up against and would like to pound
into the ground.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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