[Tlhingan-hol] KLBC: third-person subject of relative phrase

[chransberry at gmail.com]

Thank you to everyone who responded! Yeah, my grammatical terminology is a little rusty; I think I meant to say "dependent clause". But no matter...

All that about pronouns, commas, and repeating the noun is very helpful; I think I understandPl
Playing off my last series of Word of the Day sentences:

SIjwI' chIlmo' ghu, megh vutlaHbe' tey'be'wI'.
Because the baby lost the knife, my cousin could not make lunch.

Correct?

-QISta'

Connected by DROID on Verizon Wireless

-----Original message-----
From: Steven Boozer <sboozer at uchicago.edu>
To: "tlhingan-hol at kli.org" <tlhingan-hol at kli.org>
Sent: Tue, Mar 8, 2016 16:36:30 GMT+00:00
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] KLBC: third-person subject of relative phrase

QISta':
>> I know that one uses verb suffixes like -meH and -mo' to make a
>> relative clause. But the subject comes after the verb, so how do 
>> you include it in the clause without getting it stuck to the main 
>> sentence (looking like the object or something), for example, 
>> "because my mother does not like chocolate" ({yuch parmo' SoSwI'}?)
>> or "in order that Christa learn Klingon" ({tlhIngan Hol ghojmeH
>> QISta'}?)... If you could show me some example sentences of clauses
>> with third-person subjects, that would be very helpful!

John R. Harness :
> Verbs marked with these type 9 suffixes work exactly as normal, and 
> can have a third-person subject. Just as you wrote in your excellent
> example {yuch parmo' SoSwI'...}, the subject follows the verb as it 
> normally would. There is no special way to mark or set apart the 
> subject in these cases.
>
>  yuch parmo' SoSwI' vIje'pu'be'.
>  Because my mother does not like chocolate, I did not buy it. 
>    -- Or, am I buying my mother?
>
> Context will guide you to the correct interpretation. These can be
> ambiguous sometimes! 

As someone has already commented, punctuation helps tremendously:

  yuch parmo', SoSwI' vIje'pu'be'.
  Because she doesn't like chocolate, I didn't buy my mother. 

  yuch parmo' SoSwI', vIje'pu'be'.
  Because my mother doesn't like chocolate, I didn't buy it. 

If you really need to distinguish between possible objects - and context doesn't help - add a pronoun:

  yuch parmo' SoSwI', 'oH vIje'pu'be'.
  Because my mother doesn't like chocolate, I didn't buy it. 

  yuch parmo' SoSwI', ghaH vIje'pu'be'.
  Because my mother doesn't like chocolate, I didn't buy him/her. 


>  {Duj paw'be'meH HoD vIrI'pu'.} 
>  "So that the Captain does not impact the ship, I hailed him."

  Duj paw'be'meH, HoD vIrI'pu'.
  So that he/her/it doesn't impact the ship, I hailed the Captain.

  Duj paw'be'meH HoD, vIrI'pu'.
  So that the Captain doesn't impact the ship, I hailed him/her/it.

Or more specifically:

  Duj paw'be'meH HoD, ghaH vIrI'pu'.
  So that the Captain doesn't impact the ship, I hailed him (the Captain).

  Duj paw'be'meH HoD, 'oH vIrI'pu'.
  So that the Captain doesn't impact the ship, I hailed it (the ship).
 
>  {nguqmo' Duy'a' vInoS.} 
>  "I nibbled him/her/it because the ambassador is arrogant." 
>  (Am I nibbling the ambassador? Unclear.)

  nguqmo' Duy'a', vInoS.
  I nibbled him/her/it, because the ambassador is arrogant.

  nguqmo', Duy'a' vInoS.
  I nibbled the ambassador, because he is arrogant.

In speech you would simply pause briefly between the clauses.  

Don't be afraid of punctuation.  It was developed - inter alia - to represent speech in writing:  pauses of various lengths, intonation (Statements.  Questions?  Exclamations!  Doubt or uncertainty...), etc.


--
Voragh
tlhIngan ghantoH pIn'a'
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons


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