[86937] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: The topic marker -'e'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Terrence Donnelly)
Mon Nov 23 00:17:25 2009
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:15:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Terrence Donnelly <terrence.donnelly@sbcglobal.net>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
In-Reply-To: <249d5b950911221846y3c765f07t969501727929ba5d@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
--- On Sun, 11/22/09, Steven Lytle <lytlesw@gmail.com> wrote:
> I disagree on both counts.
> "Sor" can be plural, so it can mean 'trees'.
> The subject of "mapum" is 'we'. Thus in "mapum Sor" the
> subject "Sor" is
> also the subject "we", hence "we trees". While this is
> controversial, it's
> not necessarily ungrammatical. It* is* definitely not
> canonical.
> Transitive verbs can take the no-object prefixes. So even
> though transitive
> "pum" means 'accuse', it can still have no object mentioned
> and form verbs
> like "mapum", "jIpum", etc.
> It's the intransitive verb "pum" that can't take (as far as
> we know)
> lay'tel SIvten
According to the law of {rom}, {mapum Sor} is illegal not because the verb is plural and the subject possibly singular, but because they don't agree in person: {ma-} being second person and {Sor} third. I think this makes the example not controversial, but wrong..
-- ter'eS
