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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/27/2018 11:21 PM, Ed Bailey wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">SuStel: I presume you read this post of Alan
Anderson's from last September and have been giving it thought:
<a href="http://diswww.mit.edu/charon.MIT.EDU/ja%27chuq/110966"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://diswww.mit.edu/charon.MIT.EDU/ja'chuq/110966</a><br>
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<p>I read it at the time, but haven't been thinking about it. This
came about because of a discussion the other day on DuoLingo.</p>
<p>My argument is based on the text of TKD that declares the head
noun plus relative clause a "unit." ghunchu'wI''s argument has
always been based on the comparison Okrand makes in TKD which
describes what a relative clause is in English and includes "the
restaurant where we ate." His error, in my opinion, is in
believing that Okrand's example of an English relative clause is
meant to illustrate possible Klingon relative clauses. It's not.
That passage is simply trying to get the English-speaking reader
to understand that a relative clause is like an adjective that
modifies the head noun. How English constructs relative clauses,
and what meanings they encompass, are different things than
Klingon. Klingon does not have <i>the restaurant where we ate.</i><br>
</p>
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<div dir="ltr">I find your speculation both surprising and
welcome, due to what has seemed to me to be your
arch-conservatism in these matters, though I may have been
mistaken in that regard.<br>
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<p>I have no problem with speculation or musing. I say again: I am
NOT saying this is right. I think my idea is WRONG. I am
interested merely in considering the implications of treating the
relative clause as the described "unit," instead of a head noun
pinned to the main clause with the relative clause dangling off of
it.<br>
</p>
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<div>I don't have a problem with the description you cite of the
relative clause in TKD. I see a relative clause as being like
an adjective that describes the noun. One can say either <b>Duj
Doq vIlegh</b> or <b>Doqbogh Duj vIlegh</b> <i>(I see the
red ship</i> or <i>I see the ship that is red</i>). The
difference as I see it is akin to how English uses a comma to
separate a relative clause that merely provides additional
information while not doing so with one that is necessary to
identify the noun.</div>
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<p>These are known as restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.
Klingon relative clauses appear to be restrictive; that is, they
appear to narrow down the sense of the head noun. But I wouldn't
be at all surprised if that isn't an absolute.<br>
</p>
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<div>If as you suggest (or speculate or advocate: it's all fine
as long as no one pretends to authority that is not his), </div>
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<p>More than authority: I'm not suggesting or speculating or
advocating that this idea is RIGHT. I'm just musing on what the
"unit" idea might mean.<br>
</p>
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<div>the locative (or for that matter causative) noun of the
relative clause can be the object of the main clause, couldn't
it be the subject as well? Then one could say <b>Saq DujDaq
jIHaw'bogh</b> <i>The ship on which I fled landed</i>. What
do you make of this?<br>
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<p>If this were correct, then yes, it could do that.<br>
</p>
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<div>I see another major problem, besides the main verb being
able to "see" into the relative clause, and one which is not
totally unrelated to the problem of whether a preceding
modifier acts on a relative clause preceding the main clause
or on the main clause. (Example: <b>vengDaq jIlwI' ghaHpu'
loD'e' vIlegh</b> Does it mean <i>I saw the man who had
been my neighbor in the city</i> or <i>In the city, I saw
the man who had been my neighbor</i>?) The example you use
has only one possible candidate for head noun. If there's only
one candidate for head noun, it could conceivably fill some
other slot in the main clause, but if there are more than one,
which gets priority? (Alan's post I referred to above suggests
a way around this dilemma in at least some cases.)<br>
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<p>You forgot the <b>-bogh</b> in the example. This is a poor
example, because as a "to be" sentence the final noun requires an
<b>-'e',</b> automatically making it the head noun. You have no
choice.</p>
<p>A more interesting example would be how to say <i>I see the ship
in which the captain fled.</i> If you try <b>DujDaq Haw'pu'bogh
HoD vIlegh,</b> how would you know that <b>DujDaq,</b> and not
<b>HoD,</b> is supposed to be the head noun? You wouldn't.<br>
</p>
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<div>The choppy short sentence technique (which you have
advocated most persuasively) also seems to offer a way around
the problem: your <b>DujDaq jIHaw'bogh vIngu'laH</b> <i>I
can identify the ship in which I fled</i>
could simply be rendered as <b>DujDaq jIHaw' vIngu'laH</b><i>
I fled in a ship. I can identify it.</i> English speakers
might consider the first sentence pedantic if the listener
already knows the speaker fled in a ship, but Klingons might
have no problem with this way of recapping known information.
It also has the virtue of brevity.<br>
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<p>Add a <b>-pu'</b> and I'd be happy, because I'm imagining a ship
in which I made a complete getaway. If you say <b>DujDaq jIHaw'pu';
vIngu'laH </b>as a smooth utterance, with only the slightest
pause between them, you get something very similar to the <b>'uSDaj
chop; chev!</b> <i>Bite his arm off! </i>of <i>Power Klingon.</i>
Your cadence will make it clear to listeners that this is a single
idea, even if it is presented in two "basic sentences." I am
utterly convinced that Klingons combine these smaller ideas into
larger ideas as a matter of course.</p>
<p>A hundred years and more ago, it was all the rage for English
writers to use tremendously long and complicated sentences. I've
thought about translating <i>The War of the Worlds,</i> and it
would involve breaking these huge sentences down into tiny chunks.
Here's the first sentence:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth
century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by
intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own;
that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they
were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a
man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures
that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.</p>
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<p>One idea per sentence? Pshaw! If you were writing that in modern,
colloquial English you'd have to break it down into several
sentences, let alone translating it into Klingon. I did translate
the first line once; look how many "sentences" it contains (basic
sentences, "to be" sentences, comparatives, and sentence-as-object
each count as one "sentence"; conjunctions count as multiple
"sentences"):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>DIS
poH wa'maH Hut Dor qo'vam lubejchu'taH yabDu' net Harbe';
yabDu'vam 'Itlh law'
Human yab 'Itlh puS, 'ach jubbe' yabDu'vam. malja' Sar HuqtaHvIS
Humanpu'
lunuDlu'chu'taH 'ej luHaDlu'taH, net Harbe'. bIQ chovnatlh
HotlhlaH Hoqra'
lo'bogh Human, 'ej pa' qevbogh DepHommey 'ej Sepbogh nuDchu'laH;
Humanvam lurur
bejwI'pu'.</p>
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<p>By my count, I used nine "sentences" to cover just one English
sentence. It really is not a big deal to split one small English
sentence into two small Klingon sentences.<br>
</p>
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<div>Lastly, (and I am confident that you won't like this, so
please do not let this derail the thread) but your argument
that a noun can have another syntactic role in the main clause
because it's the only candidate for head noun of a relative
clause reminds me of an argument I made for the combination of
{-lu'} and {-wI'} to nominalize on the object because it is
the only candidate, the subject being pointedly moot.</div>
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<p>My argument is not that the locative noun of the relative clause
must be the head noun because no other noun can be; my argument is
that the locative noun can be RECOGNIZED as the head noun because
there is no other noun distracting you from that conclusion. You
have to first accept the notion that some noun other than the
subject or object of the relative clause can be the head noun.</p>
<p>I don't accept the argument that <b>-lu'</b> + <b>-wI'</b> must
nominalize the object because there's no subject available. <b>-wI'</b>
never nominalizes the object. There is no rule, no example, that
supports any evidence at all that <b>-wI'</b> can nominalize
objects. IF there were such a rule, then I might consider the idea
that, lacking a subject, it would nominalize the object. But there
is no such rule, and no evidence that any such rule exists.<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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