As SuStel says, this isn’t allowed because Canada (the Head Noun of the Relative Clause) is neither the subject nor object of {Sumbogh}. There’s another reason your example doesn’t work. America has nothing to do with the bears in Canada, so your reference to America is “parenthetical”. There aren’t several Canadas around such that being near America specifies which Canada you are talking about. In this sense, so far as we know, Klingon is a one step more strict about the idea that a sentence is “a complete thought”. "Canada is near America," is a complete thought. "There are bears in Canada,” is a complete thought. It really ought to be two sentences. In English, there are two kinds of Relative Clauses. So far as we know, Klingon only uses one of them; the one that identifies the head noun, not merely describing it in a way unnecessary to the meaning of the main clause. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)

On Feb 1, 2022, at 9:28 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 2/1/2022 8:02 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:

...

Suppose I want to say: "At Canada there are bears. Near Canada is America". And I want to say all this in a single sentence. So I write:

qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh 'amerI'qa' mIl'oDmey tu'lu' at canada where america is near there are bears

Would this be correct? Or is this "the ship on which I fled" problem?

Perhaps, translating the {-bogh} as "where" seems weird, but in tkd it says that "Relative clauses are translated into English as phrases beginning with <who, which, where> and most commonly <that>"

Yes, this is the "ship in which I fled" problem. The head noun of a relative clause must be the subject or object of the clause, and the head noun must be the noun that fits into the main sentence.

-- SuStel http://trimboli.name

_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

On 2/2/2022 8:24 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:

SuStel:

...

The head noun of a relative clause must be the subject or object of the clause Ok, I think I understand this.

SuStel;

...

and the head noun must be the noun that fits into the main sentence. I'm afraid I don't understand this. Can you explain this further? Or perhaps just write an example?

The head noun of the relative clause is the "anchor" that fits into the main sentence, with the rest of the relative clause dangling from it. *wov wa'Hu' HuDvo' Hov leghpu'bogh HoD */The star that the captain saw from the mountain yesterday was bright./ ** The relative clause is *wa'Hu' HuDvo' Hov leghpu'bogh HoD*/the star which the captain saw from the mountain yesterday. /The head noun of the relative clause is *Hov.* If you were to include this noun in the main sentence without the rest of the relative clause, the sentence would still work: *wov Hov* /The star was bright./ The head noun of a relative clause needs to fit into the main sentence in this way, /and/ the head noun of a relative clause must be the subject or object of the relative clause. Therefore, it is not possible to construct a relative clause like *DujDaq jIHaw'pu'bogh* /ship in which I fled /because the head noun is not subject or object of the main clause, and we know that *Duj* is your intended head noun because it is the noun that fits into the main sentence: *Duj vIleghpu'*/I saw the ship./ That's why /the ship in which I fled/ is a no-no in Klingon. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

Relative Clause in English has two forms: 1. Parenthetical: "My son-in-law, who is Black, is a movie director.” The Main Clause: “My son-in-law is a movie director.” The Relative Clause: “who is Black”. The Relative Clause gives you a parenthetical commentary on what Klingon would call the Head Noun. The Main Clause is complete without the remark and you know who my son-in-law is with or without the reference to his race. The Relative Pronoun “who” is acting in apposition with “my son-in-law”, so as in apposition, the Relative Clause is set off from the main clause with commas. 2. Indicative: [I’m showing you a collection of floor tile samples we brought home from a tile store.] “My wife prefers the tile that is dark grey.” The Main Clause: “My wife prefers the tile.” The Relative Clause: “that is dark grey” The Relative Clause identifies the specific tile referred to in the main clause. You don’t know which tile I’m talking about without it. The Relative Pronoun “that” represents “floor tile”, what in Klingon we would call the Head Noun. There is no comma between the Relative Clause and the Main Clause. In Klingon, the Relative Clause has only one form. At one point, someone suggested that at that time all Klingon Relative Clauses seemed to be Indicative, and we weren’t that sure that they even allowed Parenthetical ones, but I think maybe somewhere in canon at least one Parenthetical Relative Cause exists, and Klingon doesn’t seem to differentiate between the two. We have little or no advice on punctuation, in any case. As you know, there is no Relative Pronoun. Instead, you mark the verb of the Relative Clause with {-bogh} and work the word order out based on first, the word order for the Relative Clause itself, then place the entire Relative Clause where the Head Noun belongs in the Main Clause. So long as both the Main and Relative Clauses are relatively simple, this works out fine. If the Relative Clause has both a Subject and Object, and it is important for the meaning of the sentence to know which is the Head Noun, you optionally can mark it with {-‘e’}, and that’s probably about as complex as you can make things before it’s a better idea to split this into two sentences and abandon the Relative Clause, just letting context link the two sentences. That doesn’t make more complex structures banned. It’s just that you get into these logical arguments about the process you went through to translate from English to Klingon, ignoring that the finished product is impenetrable in Klingon, because it gets more and more difficult to tell if a word belongs in the Main Clause or the Relative Clause, especially if you have multiple nouns together. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the process of constructing a sentence has followed all the rules of grammar if you can’t parse the resulting sentence with an acceptable degree of ambiguity. This is why it doesn’t work to add other Type 5 suffixes to a Head Noun. Likely, the Type 5 suffix is intended to be just for the Relative Clause… unless it was intended to be just for the Main Clause… and there is no way to differentiate, and then you have to consider that the Type 5 has an effect on word order which might not work that well for either the Relative Clause or the Main Clause… It just keeps getting messier. The Relative Clause is a useful minor feature of the language. Put too much weight on it and it collapses, like five pounds of icing on a 3 ounce cake. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)

On Feb 2, 2022, at 9:38 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for explaining all this! I think I understand what's going on, and I'll write an example of my own, just to be certain. But before I do, just a clarification:

SuStel:

...

Therefore, it is not possible to construct a relative clause like DujDaq jIHaw'pu'bogh ship in which I fled because the head noun is not subject or object of the main clause

Did you mean to write "because the head noun is not subject or object of the relative clause" instead of "because the head noun is not subject or object of the main clause"?

And now I'll write an example of my own, just to understand I got things right.

{DISvam joghmajDaq roD romuluSngapu''e' HIvpu'bogh Ha'DIbaHmey DIlegh}

Facts: 1. Relative clause: {DISvam joghmajDaq roD romuluSngapu''e' HIvpu'bogh Ha'DIbaHmey}. 2. Head noun of the relative clause: {romuluSngapu'}. 3. If we were to include this noun in the main sentence without the rest of the relative clause, the sentence would still work: {romuluSngapu' DIlegh}.

But here there's just the ambiguity that depending on context, the {DISvam joghmajDaq roD} can either refer to the {romuluSngapu''e' HIvpu'bogh Ha'DIbaHmey} or only to the {DIlegh}. So the sentence in question is correct, and it can mean either of two things:

1. We regularly see this year in our quadrant, Romulans who have been attacked by animals. 2. We see Romulans, who have been regularly attacked by animals in our quadrant during this year.

-- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

This thread is slowly but steadily turning into a nightmare. SuStel:

Yes, you can use other type 5 suffixes on the head noun, provided those suffixes apply in the main sentence, not the relative clause.

I found this from the paq'batlh:

vaj matlhutlhjaj ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj Heghbogh loDnI'wI' wIquvmoHjaj! Let us drink then To my father in Gre'thor And the brother I once had.

Here the {-Daq} obviously refers to the {ghaHtaHbogh vavwI'}. (there's an {-'e'} missing from the {vavwI'}, but that's not the problem right now). The way I understand what's being said in this thread so far, is that the translation of {ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj} isn't "may we honor my father who's in hell", but rather "may we honor in hell, my father who's somewhere unspecified". I get the meaning that the speaker says "we're in hell, and with us being there, may we honor my father who's somewhere unspecified". Also again from the paq'batlh:

qeylISvaD jach 'ej beyDaj luqImmo' yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e' Qomqa' Hoch Qo'noS nuvpu' All of Kronos trembled once more, For every Klingon on the planet Followed her cry for Kahless.

Again here the {-Daq} refers to the {ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'}, although I'm not quite sure how this entire line is supposed to fit in with the lines above and below it. With all these being said, returning to the original sentence.. qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh 'amerI'qa' mIl'oDmey tu'lu' at canada where america is near there are bears I still can't see why one alternate translation couldn't be as well "At Canada which is being neared by America there are bears". Yes, the English translation is weird. But I was under the impression, that in a {-bogh} clause the head noun can be marked not only by an {-'e'} but by other type-5 suffixes too. I don't know if this impression of mine is actually correct, but perhaps this impression is the root of my misunderstanding. -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ

charghwI':

If Okrand can do it, why not you? Right?

I'm afraid you confuse me with the people who are willing to take over once 'oqranD retires. Others believe they can do his job. Not me. I agree with everything you said so far in the thread, that such constructions can be confusing, and should be avoided. In fact I believe that the real skill in Klingon is having the ability to say even the most complex things in the simplest way. On the other hand though, I do want to learn how complex things work. It's one of the things I find interesting in the language. -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ

Thank you for good analysis and clarification, and for taking more time than I did to see what was happening here. To make sure I got this right: {-Daq} and other Type 5 suffixed nouns are fine in Relative Clauses or in Main Clauses that have embedded Relative Clauses, so long as the Head Noun doesn’t have the Type 5 suffix with the intent of making that Head Noun other than subject or object of the Relative Clause. That’s the specific “ship in which I fled” problem, a.k.a. the “Cat in the Hat” problem, or the “Elephant in my pajamas” problem. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)

On Feb 3, 2022, at 9:21 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 2/3/2022 7:35 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:

...

This thread is slowly but steadily turning into a nightmare.

SuStel:

...

Yes, you can use other type 5 suffixes on the head noun, provided those suffixes apply in the main sentence, not the relative clause. I found this from the paq'batlh:

...

vaj matlhutlhjaj ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj Heghbogh loDnI'wI' wIquvmoHjaj! Let us drink then To my father in Gre'thor And the brother I once had. Here the {-Daq} obviously refers to the {ghaHtaHbogh vavwI'}. (there's an {-'e'} missing from the {vavwI'}, but that's not the problem right now).

The way I understand what's being said in this thread so far, is that the translation of {ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj} isn't "may we honor my father who's in hell", but rather "may we honor in hell, my father who's somewhere unspecified". I get the meaning that the speaker says "we're in hell, and with us being there, may we honor my father who's somewhere unspecified". This is not a "ship in which I fled" problem. The relative clause is ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' (missing an -'e') my father who is in Grethor. The head noun is vavwI'. The locative is internal to the relative clause. The main clause is X wIquvmoHjaj May we honor X.

...

Also again from the paq'batlh:

...

qeylISvaD jach 'ej beyDaj luqImmo' yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e' Qomqa' Hoch Qo'noS nuvpu' All of Kronos trembled once more, For every Klingon on the planet Followed her cry for Kahless. Again here the {-Daq} refers to the {ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'}, although I'm not quite sure how this entire line is supposed to fit in with the lines above and below it. This is also not a "ship in which I fled" problem. The relative clause is yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e' every Klingon who is on the planet. The head noun is Hoch tlhIngan'e'. The locative is internal to the relative clause. The main sentence is beyDaj luqImmo' X because X paid attention to her cry.

The lines are enjambed, which makes understanding the syntax a little tricky. Read it like this:

She screamed for Kahless, and because every Klingon who was on the planet paid attention to her cry, all the people of Kronos experienced an earthquake again.

...

With all these being said, returning to the original sentence..

qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh 'amerI'qa' mIl'oDmey tu'lu' at canada where america is near there are bears

I still can't see why one alternate translation couldn't be as well "At Canada which is being neared by America there are bears". Yes, the English translation is weird. But I was under the impression, that in a {-bogh} clause the head noun can be marked not only by an {-'e'} but by other type-5 suffixes too. I don't know if this impression of mine is actually correct, but perhaps this impression is the root of my misunderstanding. Here are the possible valid interpretations, with relative clauses bracketed:

qa'naDa'Daq [Sumbogh 'amerI'qa' mIl'oDmey] tu'lu' In Canada, there are American sabre bears that are nearby The head noun of the relative clause is 'amerI'qa' mIl'oDmey.

[qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh 'amerI'qa' mIl'oDmey] tu'lu' There are American sabre bears that are near Canada. The head noun of the relative clause is 'amerI'qa' mIl'oDmey.

Klingon relative clauses are restrictive. That is, the narrow the sense of the head noun of the clause, changing its nature. Pick the card that is red, not the card that is white has restrictive relative clauses, as the clauses restrict the type of card I'm talking about to specific colors.

What you're trying to do is use nonrestrictive relative clauses. Nonrestrictive clauses describe the head noun as an aside, adding additional information without changing the nature of the head noun. I handed her my business card, which was white is a nonrestrictive clause, because the fact that it is white does not restrict exactly which business card I'm talking about. Nonrestrictive clauses are usually set off parenthetically by commas.

You're trying to use a nonrestrictive relative clause in the Klingon. You're trying to say, In Canada, which is near America, there are bears. That's a nonrestrictive clause, and Klingon doesn't do those.

You frequently splice parenthetical comments into your texts, but we don't usually see Klingon texts doing this, so it's hard to advise you. The easiest way to conform to known Klingon style is not to include these parenthetical comments in the middle of sentences, but to break them out into sentences of their own. qana'Da'Daq mIlloDmey tu'lu'. 'amerI'qa'Daq Sum qana'Da'. If you absolutely must include parenthetical, nonrestrictive notes, set them off by commas or other punctuation and keep them separate from the syntax of the main sentence. qana'Da'Daq — 'amerI'qa'Daq Sum qana'Da' — mIlloDmey tu'lu'. But I don't recommend doing this if you want to stick to known Klingon style.

-- 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

Thank you SuStel for taking the time and having the patience to explain all this. I realize that trying to explain complex grammar to someone who doesn't understand grammar terms, can not only be time-consuming, but it can perhaps become frustrating/irritating too; so thanks for your patience. Luckily, the time you spent explaining all this didn't go to waste, since (finally) I understood this matter. But before moving on, I'd like to add some thoughts on this matter, as if explaining to myself when he reads this thread in the future what's going on, and doing so in simple words, since I've been never able to learn grammar (not even when I was learning English). Anyway.. Some time earlier I asked about something you wrote: SuStel:

Therefore, it is not possible to construct a relative clause like DujDaq jIHaw'pu'bogh ship in which I fled because the head noun is not subject or object of the main clause and we know that Duj is your intended head noun because it is the noun that fits into the main sentence: Duj vIleghpu' I saw the ship. jIH: Did you mean to write "because the head noun is not subject or object of the relative clause" instead of "because the head noun is not subject or object of the main clause"?

I realize now that I was wrong to ask, misunderstanding what you meant. The meaning of the example sentence was "I've seen the ship on which I fled", and the discussion was about whether writing {DujDaq jIHaw'pu'bogh vIleghpu'} would be correct. So when you wrote "because the head noun is not subject or object of the main clause" you indeed meant that the {DujDaq} isn't the object of the {vIleghpu'}. And since I know that sometime in the future I may wonder "and why can't the {DujDaq} be the object of the {vIleghpu'}?", I'll answer now to my future self saying "the {DujDaq} can't be the object of the {vIleghpu'} simply because it's wrong to say {DujDaq vIleghpu'} for 'I see the ship'". And because it's wrong to say "{DujDaq vIleghpu'} for 'I see the ship'", the head noun {Duj} can't be the object of the main clause {vIleghpu'}. "And why is the {Duj} the head noun?" Because the {Duj} is the thing you're trying to say that you saw. My future self may ask me the following: tuch jIH:

So is the "ship where I fled" matter something which needs to be avoided because it produces ambiguity, or is it something which must not be done because the resulting sentence is grammatically wrong?

The answer is that it's something which must not be done, because it's grammatically wrong. tuch jIH:

In the "ship where I fled" sentence, the {-Daq}'ed noun is at the beginning of the sentence; would it be any different/would the sentence become grammatically correct, if the {-Daq}'ed noun came after the verb of the ovs? Would it be correct to write {Qaw'pu' DujDaq jIHaw'pu'bogh} for "the ship where I fled has been destroyed"?

The answer is "no" because it's grammatically wrong to say {Qaw'pu' DujDaq}. In the {Qaw'pu' DujDaq jIHaw'pu'bogh} the {DujDaq} can't be the subject of {Qaw'pu'}. tuch jIH:

Read this Ca'Non sentence: {'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh lenglu'meH He ghoSlu'bogh retlhDaq 'oHtaH} (Skybox 99). Is there a simple way to understand why the {'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh lenglu'meH} is grammatically correct? How is it any different from the {DujDaq jIHaw'pu'bogh vIleghpu'}?

Because you moron, in the {'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh lenglu'meH} the {'u' SepmeyDaq Sovbe'lu'bogh} is a {-bogh}'ed noun at which a {-Daq} is applied, and then this {-bogh}'ed noun becomes the object of the {lenglu'meH}. At the "ship where I fled" the {DujDaq jIHaw'pu'bogh} isn't a {-bogh}'ed noun. tuch jIH:

Yes but in the paq'batlh examples, of {ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj} and {qeylISvaD jach 'ej beyDaj luqImmo' yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'}, the {-bogh}'ed nouns are {ghaHtaHbogh vavwI'} and {ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'} respectively. The locative marked by {-Daq} isn't the subject or object of the {-bogh} clause.

True, but the locative comes before the {-bogh} baby sentence whose last element {vavwI'}/{Hoch tlhIngan'e'} is the head noun of the relative clause, marked by the {-'e'}, which in turn is the object and subject of the main sentence respectively. That's what SuStel meant by saying "The head noun of a relative clause must be the subject or object of the clause, and the head noun must be the noun that fits into the main sentence". tuch jIH:

Even so, in the {ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj} the {ghe'torDaq} isn't the object of the {-bogh} clause. So why can't this mean as well "may we honor in hell, my father who's somewhere unspecified", as in "we're in hell, and with us being there, may we honor my father who's somewhere unspecified"

Because it's not a {-bogh} phrase with a "regular" verb, but a {-bogh} phrase with a pronoun. It's a special construction of how to say "I'm in a place". Perhaps it makes no sense saying that someone is somewhere unspecified, so there's no other way this is allowed to be understood, and perhaps the thing which is actually happening in a {XDaq ghaHtaH Y'e'} construction hasn't been completely clarified. Perhaps 'oqranD chose to allow this, because there's no sense in understanding "may we honor in hell, my father who's somewhere unspecified", or perhaps 'oqranD believes that in an {XDaq ghaHtaH Y'e'} construction there always needs to be an {XDaq} applying to the construction in question, even if we had the {-bogh} version of {XDaq ghaHtaHbogh Y'e'} with a sentence following where the {XDaq} could alternatively be applied. Learn it as an exception, and in the long run, maltz said so, so shut up and don't ask. Take it on faith. tuch jIH:

Read again the Ca'Non sentence: {qeylISvaD jach 'ej beyDaj luqImmo' yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'}. Don't you see something strange?

Yes, the {lu-} on the {luqImmo'} is wrong. That doesn't change anything regarding the "ship where I fled" problem which is being discussed. And finally some words of advice to my future self.. The confusion started because you took the English "at canada where america is near", you translated it as {qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh 'amerI'qa'}, and then tried to justify this choice by tkd's "Relative clauses are translated into English as phrases beginning with <who, which, where> and most commonly <that>". But as De'vID wrote: De'vID:

Translating {-bogh} as "where" is fine, if that's appropriate. For example, {veng vIDabbogh} "the city where I live".

As you see, the "where" meaning of {-bogh} can be applied when the word preceding the {-bogh} phrase is it's object as well. So the only way you could say "at canada where america is near", is by writing {qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh 'amerI'qa'}, but only if the {Sum} could take the {qa'naDa'Daq} as its' object. But {Sum} doesn't work that way. Here's where the whole confusion started. So, that's it! I got a serious headache writing all this, but since finally I understand, it was all worth it. All's well that ends well. Also I'd like to say to my future self "I wish I knew now, what you know then", as captain Janeway would say, but that's another matter altogether. -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ

On 2/7/2022 7:10 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:

However, we *can* say {tawDaq Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH vIlegh}. And here we'd have two possible meanings:

(Although I'm not sure if the relative clause is the entire {tawDaq Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH} or just the {Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH}).

1. "I see the animal which is near the street". Meaning "I see an animal, and that animal is near the street".

In this interpretation, the relative clause includes the *tawDaq. *It is an /animal which is near the street,/ not just an /animal which is nearby./

2. "I see at the street the animal which is near". Meaning "I'm at the street, and while I'm there, I see the animal which is near". Near where? Near me (because of the deixis crap which governs the use of {Sum} and {Hop}).

In this interpretation, the relative cause does not include the *tawDaq.* It is an /animal which is nearby,/ not an /animal which is near the street./

And I don't know why, but I get the impression that case number 2 is an exception to the "rule" that the subject of {Sum}/{Hop} is whatever is being near/far the {-Daq}ed noun.

It's not a rule; it's just what the words mean. *tawDaq Sum Ha'DIbaH:* the animal is in the state /be nearby,/ and that state occurs /at the street./ The key is understanding that a locative tells you where the action takes place, not where the subject is when the action takes place. Most of the time, the subject takes place where the action is: *ropyaHDaq Haq HaqwI'*/A surgeon performs surgery an in infirmary,/ but with *Sum* and *Hop,* the meanings of the verbs make it clear that the action of being nearby or being far away takes place where the subject is not. It's not special grammar. It's just what the words mean. Your interpretation number 2 is not an exception. There, the locative *tawDaq* is not the location of the being nearby; it's the location of the seeing. The seeing, performed by you, occurs in the street. The being nearby, performed by the animal, occurs, by implication, at your location. At your location, the animal is nearby. The locative is not part of the relative clause at all. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

On 2/7/2022 11:07 AM, Will Martin wrote:

Okay, weird idea: Change the Head Noun. {Ha’DIbaH vIlegh tawDaq jISumbogh}? “I, who am near the street, saw an animal.” Now, we don’t know where the animal is, which is a new problem.

You'd need to explicitly use the *jIH* here. Dropping it causes a no-head-noun problem. *Ha'DIbaH vIlegh tawDaq jISumbogh jIH.* I don't think it works even like this, because *tawDaq jISumbogh jIH* is a nonrestrictive relative clause, unless you've been duplicated and you're explaining which *jIH* you're talking about. And in such a weird case, I might expect the *jIH* to be treated as a third-person entity, since it's not literally the speaker, even if it's identical to the speaker.

{tawDaq Sumbogh Ha’DIbaH vIlegh juHwIjDaq jIHtaHbogh.} “I, who am in my house, saw an animal, which is near the street.” See how complicated this can get?

Same issue. You need an explicit head noun (or pronoun), and you're using a nonrestrictive relative clause, unless there are duplicates of you.

We don’t really have the mechanism to apply two separate locatives to the same verb, except for the special directional verbs that take locations as objects. {DujwIjDaq Qo’noS vIghoS.} I’m in my ship and I’m going to Kronos. Both the ship and Kronos are locations that involve the actions of going.

Can we do this with vision? Can I say, “I saw an animal in the street from my house,”? {juHwIjvo’ tawDaq Ha’DIbaH vIlegh.} Does this work?

Yes, but *juHwIjvo'* is not a locative. It's an ablative. And ablatives with *legh* seem to be a special case in Klingon. But regardless, there's no problem in Klingon to simultaneously say that an action occurs /at/ one location and /away/ from another. *Qo'noSvo' DujwIjDaq jIlenglaH'a'?* /Can I travel away from Kronos in my ship?/

Maybe. Do Klingons see vision as happening from a place to a place? Maybe, instead of seeing vision as something like an arrow shot from the seer to the target, Klingons trace the direction of light and see from the target to the viewer. Vision is then more like taking than like giving. That’s an alien idea to us, but hey, Klingons are aliens, right?

Actually, I think the canonical *pa'lIjvo' pagh leghlu'* supports the idea that Klingons have a sight metaphor identical to that which we have in English. In earlier times, it was commonly believed that sight operated by the eyes sending out some mysterious kind of beam to touch a target. Whatever this beam hit is what you'd see. The idea of the eyes collecting light to enable vision is a relatively recent discovery. It wasn't until the Renaissance that the mechanics of vision began to be understood. By then, the idea of sight operating by extramission had worked its way deeply into language, and it's ingrained in English today. A keen or sharp or piercing glance refers to the workings of that beam. You can /feel/ eyes on you. One basic metaphor is that you can /see from/ a place, worded as if your sight is something that leaves the place you're in. We just have the one example in an early source that's known to be a bit grammatically wonky, so I'm not prepared to jump wholeheartedly into the claim that Klingon includes full-on extramission metaphors. It's just one possible explanation for the line. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

Because I caught myself again making the same mistake, trying to write {HurDaq bIrbogh Ha'DIbaH lulonpu'} for "they abandoned the animal outside where it's cold", I'll add the following to this thread. Perhaps my confusion in all this, has to do with me trying to use constructions like {qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh 'amerI'qa'}, {HurDaq bIrbogh}, etc as {-bogh}'ed nouns, and then just adding the {-Daq} wherever I feel appropriate. But here's perhaps what I need to remember in order to avoid the confusion.. In order for a noun to be {-bogh}'ed it needs to be the subject or object of the jay' {-bogh} phrase. DujDaq vIleghbogh QuQmey nov tu'lu' at the ship which I see there are alien engines 'albogh DujDaq yaSpu' qeqmoH HoD at ship which levitates the captain trains the officers Both those examples are correct, because the {-Daq} is placed at the object/subject of the {-bogh} phrase. But in the original example of {qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh 'amerI'qa' mIl'oDmey tu'lu'} the {qa'naDa'} isn't the object of {Sum}. Similarly, in the {HurDaq bIrbogh Ha'DIbaH lulonpu'} the {Hur} isn't the object of {bIr}. The {qa'naDa' Sumbogh} isn't a {-bogh}'ed noun, and neither is the {Hur bIrbogh}, so we can't write {qa'naDa'Daq Sumbogh}/{HurDaq bIrbogh} as if we had {-bogh}'ed nouns which we simply {-Daq}'ed. Now.. The sentence of {tawDaq Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH vIlegh} which I wrote earlier in the thread, is indeed correct (exhibiting the ambiguity which has already been described). In one interpretation of the sentence we have a relative clause which includes the {-Daq}, i.e the relative clause of {tawDaq Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH}. But the important thing to notice (and I'm talking to myself right now..) is that there's no {-bogh}'ed noun which has been {-Daq}'ed; the {-bogh}'ed noun is the {Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH} and right before it, a {tawDaq} just happens to be grazing. And this is the difference between this sentence and the {DujDaq vIleghbogh QuQmey nov tu'lu'}/{'albogh DujDaq yaS}, where the {-Daq} is placed on noun which has been {-bogh}'ed. Also, in order to be as thorough as possible, I'd like to add that all the above go even in the case where at {DujDaq vIleghbogh QuQmey nov tu'lu'}/{'albogh DujDaq yaS} there was a subject/object to the {-bogh} phrase respectively: DujDaq luleghbogh yaS QuQmey nov tu'lu' at the ship which is seen by the officers there are alien engines nuH 'almoHbogh DujDaq yaSpu' qeqmoH HoD at the ship which causes the weapon to levitate the captain trains the officers Although I'm not sure whether in the sentences above the noun which has been {-bogh}ed is the {Duj} or the {yaS}/{nuH}, that's not the issue; the issue is that both those sentences are correct, because the {-Daq} is in a {-bogh} clause, where *every* noun of that clause is glued together with that clause's verb in an object/subject relationship. Again I developed a serious headache writing all this, but hopefully now my confusion has ended. -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ

Apologies for my previous submission. Switched Email accounts and didn’t have all the other entries in this long thread marked as read… It would help if we used more standard grammatical terms. A noun is never {-boghed}. It’s a Head Noun of a Relative Clause. The verb is {-boghed}. The rule is that a Head Noun ALWAYS needs to be either the Subject or Object of the Relative Clause (the Subject or Object of the verb with {-bogh}). That head noun can have a {-Daq} on it, but the context of the {-Daq} is always applied to the Main Clause, not the Relative Clause. Nouns and Noun Phrases tend to be Subject or Object, revealed by its location and the absence of a Type 5 suffix most of the time ({-‘e’} being the most common exception), or the noun or noun phrase tend to appear at or near the beginning of the sentence with a Type 5 suffix telling us what it’s function is. {-Daq} is a Type 5 noun suffix. So, it’s okay to have a Head Noun function as a Locative IN THE MAIN CLAUSE, but it can’t be anything except Subject or Object IN THE RELATIVE CLAUSE. The Head Noun acts as a Noun in both clauses, but its grammatical function is less limited in the Main Clause than in the Relative Clause. Is that making SuStel’s repeated explanation any clearer? There are a lot of unique things about Relative Clauses. Usually, we’re talking about nouns or noun PHRASES. The relative clause is the only dependent clause that acts like a noun phrase. It consists of at least a Head Noun and a verb with {-bogh}, though it can have additionally have other elements of a whole sentence, and, like a noun phrase, it goes wherever the noun would go in the Main Clause. It’s a mini-sentence encapsulated in a larger sentence, and the point where it is encapsulated is the location of the Head Noun as it appears in the Main Clause. So, you can always read or hear the Main Clause as a complete sentence WITH THE HEAD NOUN, omitting the Relative Clause. So, if that Head Noun is a locative, it is a locative FOR THE MAIN CLAUSE. AFTER YOU HAVE THE SENTENCE WITH THE HEAD NOUN IN IT, you can wrap that Relative Clause around that Head Noun as it would go in a separate sentence, with the single condition that you can’t change the suffixes on the Head Noun AS IT APPEARED IN THE MAIN CLAUSE in order to fit in the Relative Clause. If the Head Noun’s suffixes don’t jive with the verb of the Relative Clause, this is not a problem. Since the Head Noun is ALWAYS subject or object of the Relative Clause, you know whether it’s subject or object of the verb with {-bogh} because of the order of the Head Noun and the verb with {-bogh}. The primary grammatical function of the Head Noun is its participation in the Main Clause. The verb with {-bogh} adds meaning to the Head Noun, somehow identifying it as different from similarly named nouns that don’t fit the truth stated by the Relative Clause. “The ship in which I fled” is a problem because “ship in which I fled” is a Relative Clause, and “ship” is trying to be the Head Noun of that clause, but it can’t because it is not the Subject (the thing fleeing, since *I* am the one fleeing), nor is it the object of the Relative Clause (because I’m not fleeing the ship. I’m fleeing IN the ship). Relative Clauses are among the most potentially complex grammatical forms in Klingon, which, by its nature, favors simple grammar. Since grammatical function of nouns can be determined by either its location or its Type 5 suffix, the one limiting factor so that you can figure out WTF is going on in a sentence with a fully developed Relative Clause is that the form of the Head Noun (especially what kind of Type 5 noun suffix it has, other than {-‘e’}) needs to exist in the context of the Main Clause, leaving the Relative Clause to explain it’s use of the Head Noun by position alone, limiting it to being either the Subject or Object of the verb with {-bogh}. If it didn’t have that limit, you could very easily write a sentence with a Relative Clause that would be impenetrable to the listener. I mean, you can do that anyway, but at least you have to work at it more than you would if you could have a Head Noun doing something other than subject or object of the verb with {-bogh}. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)

On Feb 13, 2022, at 7:24 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

jIH:

...

The sentence of {tawDaq Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH vIlegh} which I wrote earlier in the thread, is indeed correct (exhibiting the ambiguity which has already been described). In one interpretation of the sentence we have a relative clause which includes the {-Daq}, i.e the relative clause of {tawDaq Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH}. But the important thing to notice (and I'm talking to myself right now..) is that there's no {-bogh}'ed noun which has been {-Daq}'ed; the {-bogh}'ed noun is the {Sumbogh Ha'DIbaH} and right before it, a {tawDaq} just happens to be grazing.

And this is what's happening in the {ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj} and {yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'} paq'batlh sentences.

There's no {-bogh}'ed noun which has been {-Daq}'ed; the {-bogh}'ed noun is the {vavwI'} which being {-bogh}'ed becomes {ghaHtaHbogh vavwI'}, and the {Hoch tlhIngan} which being {-bogh}'ed becomes {ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'}. In both cases, after the {-bogh}ing, there's just a {ghe'torDaq}/{yuQDaq} which just happens to be grazing in the front.

And the ambiguity exists in the first sentence as well.

The {ghe'torDaq ghaHtaHbogh vavwI' wIquvmoHjaj} may be understood either as "may we honor my father who is in hell", or "may we honor in hell my father who is being somewhere unspecified".

However, as far as the second sentence is concerned, there is no ambiguity since the {Hoch tlhIngan'e'} is not only the subject of the {ghaHtaHbogh}, but the subject of the preceding {qIm} as well:

qeylISvaD jach 'ej beyDaj luqImmo' yuQDaq ghaHtaHbogh Hoch tlhIngan'e'

Obviously, since the given translation goes: "For every Klingon on the planet Followed her cry for Kahless" the {lu-} on the {luqImmo'} is wrong, but who cares about this right now..

-- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ <https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/> Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org