[Tlhingan-hol] headless {-bogh}?

[SuStel]

On 1/19/2016 2:19 PM, lojmIttI'wI'nuv wrote:
> For myself, I think that {peghmey Hutlhbogh jaj rur Hovmey Hutlhbogh
> ram}

Hov ghajbe'bogh ram rur pegh ghajbe'bogh jaj

> is another poorly described canon example. We could argue that this
> was written before the idea of marking the head noun with {-‘e’} was
> presented, and at that stage of development in the language, context
> would have to just tell you which noun is the head noun, or you could
> argue that from context it is obvious that the secrets resemble the
> stars… or that the day resembles the night…

I would argue both of those things.

> Meanwhile, it occurs to me that the secrets don’t really resemble the
> stars, and the day doesn’t really resemble the night. It’s the entire
> construction of a day without secrets that resembles the entire
> construction of a night without stars. Both are exceptional, and in both
> cases, it feels like something is wrong. Days are supposed to have
> secrets and nights are supposed to have stars.
>
> So, this is a different case than SuStel’s case. There is no implied
> head noun, unless the implication is that the entire relative clause is
> functioning as a head noun.

{Hov ghajbe'bogh ram} and {pegh ghajbe'bogh jaj} are noun phrases made 
with relative clauses. {ram} and {jaj} are their respective head nouns.* 
This is the syntax. Meanwhile, the semantics tell us that a "day without 
secrets," not just a "day," resembles a "night without stars," not just 
a night.

[*] Any of these combinations could syntactically be the head nouns: 
Hov/pegh, Hov/jaj, ram/pegh, ram/jaj.

There certainly ARE head nouns, though without thinking about the 
meaning of the utterance it's not possible to tell which ones they are.

And is it really inevitable that the phrase can't mean "secrets which a 
day doesn't have are like stars which a night doesn't have"?

> I’m saying, we’ve discussed this before from other angles. Maybe it’s
> time to discuss it again. SuStel has a good point, if the head noun is
> obvious even when it is unstated. This doesn’t fit the description in
> TKD, but then, neither does the canon example of days without secrets.

Was I making a point? I simply pointed out the existence of something 
Okrand has been recorded saying. I'm not trying to claim it is 
normative, just that resembles something that someone else brought up.

> Could it be that relative clauses are more versatile than TKD suggests?
> I still think that in order to write clear, well-formed Klingon, usually
> it is probably best to include an explicit, single head-noun and mark it
> with {-‘e’} if it is not obvious which noun is that head noun, but I’m
> trying to learn to be more flexible about things, and I’m thinking that
> maybe {-bogh} deserves a little more attention.

I prefer to avoid adding {-'e'} unless I want to be very careful in 
expressing something. First I consider whether distinguishing the head 
nouns even matters (yIH ghupbogh be' qan). Then I check to see whether 
there's already a type 5 suffix on the head noun (this happens a lot), 
in which case I *can't* disambiguate. Finally, if I see no other choice, 
I'll use {-'e'}.

In actual conversation I usually don't think of the {-'e'} in time to 
use it, and nobody is put out. It's usually just not that hard to 
understand a phrase without it, especially when you can use the tone of 
your voice for emphasis. (We dunno much about native Klingon intonation.)

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name