[87172] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: The topic marker -'e'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher Doty)
Wed Nov 25 19:54:30 2009
In-Reply-To: <4B0DC672.2010902@trimboli.name>
From: Christopher Doty <suomichris@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:52:26 -0800
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
> I don't think I've ever seen that example.
It was one that Voragh sent round earlier. It's the most obvious one,
but there are several in there which are also quite similar.
> As I mentioned before, there are several examples of noun–noun
> constructions with {-vaD} on the first noun. I believe they all occur in
> isolated noun phrases (that is, not in verbal clauses). The rules tell
> us this is not allowed, but there they are. They *are* noun-nouns.
*Why* are they noun-nouns? I see nothing in TKD that says that any
two nouns next to each other are always and only in a N-N
relationship. In <yaSvaD taj nobpu' qama'>, you wouldn't say that the
two nouns are in a N-N construction, I assume.
It seems to me, based on the rule that you can't have suffixes on the
first noun, your reasoning is backwards here. If you see "N-vaD N,"
those nouns CANNOT be in a N-N construction, because it would be
ungrammatical, so they must be considered something else (two nouns
that just happened to end up next to each other).
> The BoP poster, plus this one, have enough of them that I can't complain
> *too* strongly if someone uses them, but as you now see, they will be
> really ambiguous if you try to use them: are they modifying the object
> or the verb? Personally, I will not use them without confirmation from
> Okrand.
I just don't see this as ambiguous. As I outlined above, "N-vaD N"
cannot be ambiguous, because it can't be a N-N construction.
If you translate it straight across into English, you get "A
dishonorable battle is a battle for tribbles." Now, I'm willing to
acknowledge that I've basically just translated a somewhat idiomatic
construction into Klingon, and one might have objects for that reason,
but I still don't see
> I am also convinced that Okrand simply forgot that the rules in TKD
> forbid this sort of thing.
Can you tell me what rule this is? I'm still not following. I know
that there is a rule that suffixes can't go on the first noun in a N-N
construction, but I haven't seen a rule that says all noun-noun
sequences are automatically noun-noun constructions...
