On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 12:53 PM, qurgh lungqIj <qurgh@wizage.net> wrote:

Part of me wants to believe it's a joke phrase. Anyone trying to figure it out will quickly end up saying, "I'm lost! I don't get this grammar at all!" :D

It might be a holdover from an earlier experiment in grammar, maybe involving the ordering of nouns in relative clauses or something, and then he forgot to change it back when he changed his mind. It's probably just a mistake, though. Maybe if someone asked about it, he'd retcon it into being some kind of fossilized idiomatic expression or something. I do enjoy those. On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 1:00 PM, demonchaux.aurelie < demonchaux.aurelie@gmail.com> wrote:

It is a good question - I am also wondering about this sentence, because somehow it feels wrong to include {naDev} at all.

I like it, personally. It demonstrates how {naDev} and the other locatives are just nouns like any other noun.

*> DaH naDev jIHtaHbogh meq Saja'*

Now I will tell you why I am here. (PB) T

This sounds strange too; "now, the reason which I am being here, I will tell you". Something doesn't make sense in this sentence. qunnoq On Sep 12, 2017 10:13 PM, "Steven Boozer" <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote: vaj matlhutlhjaj ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj Let us drink then To my father in Gre'thor (PB) yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e' Qomqa' Hoch Qo'noS nuvpu' All of Kronos trembled once more, For every Klingon on the planet (PB) * DaH naDev jIHtaHbogh meq Saja' * Now I will tell you why I am here. (PB) [Thanks to SuStel for providing the translation of this last verse.] * jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe' * I'm lost. (TKD Useful Expressions) The placement of *naDev* is certainly odd in the TKD example. Perhaps he re-thought it when he was working on the paq’batlh. -- Voragh *From:* nIqolay Q On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 12:53 PM, qurgh lungqIj <qurgh@wizage.net> wrote: Part of me wants to believe it's a joke phrase. Anyone trying to figure it out will quickly end up saying, "I'm lost! I don't get this grammar at all!" :D It might be a holdover from an earlier experiment in grammar, maybe involving the ordering of nouns in relative clauses or something, and then he forgot to change it back when he changed his mind. It's probably just a mistake, though. Maybe if someone asked about it, he'd retcon it into being some kind of fossilized idiomatic expression or something. I do enjoy those. On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 1:00 PM, demonchaux.aurelie < demonchaux.aurelie@gmail.com> wrote: It is a good question - I am also wondering about this sentence, because somehow it feels wrong to include {naDev} at all. I like it, personally. It demonstrates how {naDev} and the other locatives are just nouns like any other noun. _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

If I assume that both {jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe'} and {DaH naDev jIHtaHbogh meq Saja'} are examples of correct Klingon grammar, I can propose a simple analysis that explains them. It also points to a way to include the meaning of one of the English phrases presented in TKD as an example of a relative clause ("the restaurant where we ate"). I just have to shrug off one of Marc Okrand's comments in an interview about relative clauses, where he said he couldn't make them work with anything other than the subject or object as the head noun. He implies that translations of Klingon relative clauses include "that", "which", or "who". If I instead find that he *did* make a relative "where" work as the head noun in the {...vISovbe'} sentence, and that he made a relative "why" work in the {...Saja'} sentence, then there is only one rule from TKD that needs to be addressed. We're told that the head of the relative clause is placed based on its role in the clause. The tweak is to say that a head that is neither the subject nor the object of the clause comes at the end of the clause, after the OSV portion. It might turn out that the relative clause acts as the first noun in a N-N construction, and the second noun isn't exactly its head, but it's the second noun that fills the role in the outer sentence that the head of the relative usually takes. Treating it that way, strictly literal translations of the two examples could be proposed: "I do not know the here of which I am being." "I will tell you the reason of which I am being here." Substituting "here where" and "reason why" for the "X of which" gives reasonable-sounding translations. If we only had the original example from TKD, it would be unrealistic to use it as support for a complete theory of non-subject, non-object relative clause heads. But the second example from the paq'batlh aligns with it, and I consider that sufficient. -- ghunchu'wI'