SuStel:

So far as we know, yes, only the nouns that give a relative location let you say pronoun noun.

Is the {Daq Dop} a noun giving a relative location? I'm asking to make certain I understand correctly what a relative location actually is. ~ Dana'an

It’s also good to remember that in all of this, any time we add {-Daq} to a noun, we are talking about the location where something happens. We are not talking about the location of a noun independent of any verb, as a sentence fragment. This goes back to the “cat in the hat” problem. Klingon doesn’t have a mechanism for using {-Daq} to refer to the location of a noun, except through the location referring to the action of a verb. “The warrior in the tower aims his disruptor at the enemy on the sark.” In English, “the warrior in the tower” is a meaningful sentence fragment; a chunk of grammar that is complete as a reference that you can understand without a verb. The same is true as “the enemy on the sark”. In Klingon, we could expand these into relative clauses, as “the warrior who stands in the tower” and “the enemy who is riding the sark”, but these are grammatically quite different from the original English phrases because they introduce verbs that were absent from the original, and when the {-Daq} is trying to apply itself to the object of the main verb, it becomes ambiguous because the locative would appear in the same location in the sentence whether it is intended to give the location of the relative clause or the main clause. Ambiguity happens and it’s not an evil we always need to eliminate, but it does open potentials for being misunderstood, akin to the significance of the comma in, “Let’s eat, Grandma." You’d have to keep in mind that the locatives refer to the locations of actions, not a direct reference to the locations of the nouns. I’d probably say it as: qalqachvo’ SarghDaq jagh Qeq SuvwI’. I’m not directly telling you where the enemy is or the warrior. I’m telling that the aiming occurs from the tower to the sark, and that the warrior is aiming at the enemy. It implies that the warrior is in the tower and the enemy is on the sark because of the location and direction the aiming happens. This is why when you discuss anything like a fringe case of using {-Daq} it’s not really good to try to use sentence fragments only. You want to work with whole sentences so that you can fully understand the grammar of locatives in Klingon. Your original question had to do with wanting to describe the location of a thing, not of an action involving the thing. That’s a somewhat alien concept within the grammatical framework of a Klingon sentence, outside of SuStel’s examples of {Hay} and {Dung} because these are nouns that act as relative descriptors of location which are valid as nouns that can be used as subjects or objects of a verb, in addition to being nouns that can instead have {-Daq} added to pin down the location that the action of a verb happened. {Dung} is a noun that can be a subject or an object of a verb. {DungDaq} is a locative for the action of a verb. Attempts to use {DungDaq} as a subject or object would indeed be an edge case of grammar, probably without canon to back it up. It would, at the very least, be highly uncommon, though in poetry, all bets are off. Twas brillig and the slithy toves... charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)

On Mar 10, 2021, at 10:42 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 3/10/2021 9:07 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:

...

SuStel:

...

So far as we know, yes, only the nouns that give a relative location let you say pronoun noun.

Is the {Daq Dop} a noun giving a relative location? I'm asking to make certain I understand correctly what a relative location actually is. No, I'm referring to words like Hay area beyond and Dung area above that refer to locations in reference to some other location. Area beyond what? Area above what? When you think about the word Daq location, you don't necessarily think "location relative to what?"

You could say jIH Hay area beyond me or jIH Dung area above me, but not jIH Daq — that would have to be DaqwIj my location.

-- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

On 3/10/2021 11:33 AM, Will Martin wrote:

It’s also good to remember that in all of this, any time we add {-Daq} to a noun, we are talking about the location where something happens. We are not talking about the location of a noun independent of any verb, as a sentence fragment.

Untrue. *DujDaq* means /ship (as a location)/ whether or not something is happening at the ship. *naDev* means the location known as /here./ Locatives are locatives whether they're in sentences or not. Would you object to a book or chapter title *DujmajDaq*/on our ship/ or *SermanyuQDaq*/on Sherman's Planet?/ I wouldn't: they're perfectly sensible locatives.

This goes back to the “cat in the hat” problem. Klingon doesn’t have a mechanism for using {-Daq} to refer to the location of a noun, except through the location referring to the action of a verb.

The cat-in-the-hat problem is not a problem of referring to the location of a noun; it's a problem simply of syntax. Nouns with Type 5 suffixes on them are not allowed to modify other nouns in the noun-noun construction. There's no /conceptual/ reason why they can't. It's strictly a rule of syntax. *meHDaq quS* makes perfect sense as /on-the-bridge chair./ It's just not an allowed syntax. Your statement isn't even true as a technicality. I can easily use locatives without using verbs: *meHDaq 'oH HoD quS'e'*/The captain's chair is on the bridge./ No verb there. There's no difference in syntax between *meHDaq 'oH HoD quS'e'* and *vIqraq 'oH HoD quS'e'.* Both sentences link the captain's chair with another noun. The locative has no special verbal significance.

{Dung} is a noun that can be a subject or an object of a verb. {DungDaq} is a locative for the action of a verb. Attempts to use {DungDaq} as a subject or object would indeed be an edge case of grammar, probably without canon to back it up. It would, at the very least, be highly uncommon, though in poetry, all bets are off.

Nonsense. Locatives can be used as the objects of verbs if the verb imparts a locative sense to its object. *DungDaq vIjaH* /I go to the area /is a legal, if redundant, sentence, and the locative is the object of the verb. The locative /has/ to be the object of the verb. If I said *DungDaq jIjaH,* it would mean I'm in the area above and going somewhere, which is not what I wanted to say. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

I’m not sure what you mean by “at the opposite side of me”. I=Given your scenario I would be more likely to say {taw latlh DopDaq} “on the other side of the road” or “across the street” (i.e. “from me” being implied). We even have a similar sentence in the paq’batlh: Sepvetlh latlh DopDaq Hatlh lengtaHvIS qeylIS On the other side of the land, Kahless traveled the lands (PB) Voragh _____________________________________________________________ From: SuStel On 3/10/2021 7:59 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote: I'm standing at one side of the road, and I want to say "at the opposite side of me is a colorful alien" Is there any reason against saying {jIH Daq DopDaq} for "at the opposite location of me"? Or is it that the only kind of noun which can follow a pronoun, is one of the "classic" locative nouns (e.g. bIng, Dung, retlh, Hay, etc)? So far as we know, yes, only the nouns that give a relative location let you say pronoun noun.