[Tlhingan-hol] Ten Commandments in Klingon

[SuStel]

On 4/17/2016 3:47 PM, Dillon, Kyle wrote:
> Ah, that makes sense now. So if the head noun is the subject of the 
> relative clause, then the clause precedes the noun, but if the head 
> noun is the object, the clause follows the noun.

Yes, but strictly speaking the head noun is part of the clause. The 
clause simply obeys normal Klingon sentence order.

*ghaH qIppu'bogh yaS* /the officer who hit him/
(because *ghaH qIp yaS* /the officer hit him/)

*yaS qIppu'bogh ghaH//*/the officer whom he hit
/(because *yaS qIppu' ghaH*/he hit the officer/)

> So let me try tackling the prologue of the Ten Commandments again:
>
> I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
> /joH'a' QunlI' mISr puHvo' qalelta'bogh jIH./
> {Main clause predicate}{Ablative adverbial}{Relative clause}{Subject}
>
> And this time I'm using the verb /lel/ (get/take out) rather than 
> /qem/ (bring). Better?

I don't think we've had *joH'a'* attested in canon. I understand the 
desire to distinguish /the/ God from /a/ god, but I don't know that 
*joH'a'* does that. Does it equal capitalizing in English? Maybe. I 
think I accept it as meaning /lord above all other lords./

Basing a relative clause on a head pronoun is odd, but not disallowed. 
Still, this may be a case where restating things slightly differently 
might lend itself to a more natural Klingon utterance:

*joH'a' QunlI' je jIH. maSIr Sepvo' qalel rIntaH.
*/I am the Lord and your God. I got you out of the country of Egypt.

/I chose *Sep* /region/// instead of *puH* /land/ because a *Sep* 
denotes a country, where such political entities exist, while *puH* 
apparently just means /ground/ (e.g. *puH Duj*/automobile//, "ground car"/).

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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