[86824] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Fw: RE: Yet another newbie!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Trimboli)
Wed Nov 11 18:18:48 2009
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:15:40 -0500
From: David Trimboli <david@trimboli.name>
In-reply-to: <646052.79591.qm@web82605.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Terrence Donnelly wrote:
> --- On Wed, 11/11/09, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:
> >
> > TKD p.69: For {'Iv} "who?" and {nuq} "what?" the
> > question word fits in the position that would be
> occupied by
> > the answer.
>
> So "Who is he?" is {ghaH 'Iv}?
The examples and rules we have are inconclusive. It might be {ghaH 'Iv}
or it might be {'Iv ghaH}.
> Can they occupy other places in a sentence? eg:
>
> ?'Iv taj Daghaj? HoD taj vIghaj.
Also insufficient evidence. I don't see why not.
> > Dochvam nuq
> > What is this? CK
> >
> > Sojvetlh 'oH nuq'e'
> > What is that food? PK
>
> Don't these contradict each other?
Not really. It may simply be a matter of asking, "Which pronoun is
acting as a verb here?" Although {nuq} (and {'Iv}) is described in TKD
as a "question word," it is also undoubtedly a pronoun (an interrogative
pronoun), and as such seems to follow the rules for pronouns standing in
for verbs. That is happening in the first example, but in the second
{'oH} is the pronoun acting as a verb.
Any rules about pronouns and question words acting as verbs seem to be
fairly vague in any case; the rules seem to change with each example. It
may be that the rule is simply "throw around pronouns however you like,"
or there may be a whole set of rules governing their use that we have
never been told. In any case, so long as any sentences you use are
comprehensible, no one has much cause to proclaim it absolutely wrong.
--
SuStel
tlhIngan Hol MUSH
http://trimboli.name/mush
