[87201] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: The topic marker -'e'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tracy Canfield)
Thu Nov 26 07:41:26 2009
In-Reply-To: <f60fe000911260415p4d59b044k778c17aef5730d60@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:39:39 -0500
From: Tracy Canfield <toastrix@gmail.com>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
2009/11/26 Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com>:
> It seems clear that {-vaD} is at least primarily an indirect object
> marker, which means it's not at all clear what to do with it outside
> of a sentence. The few examples we have of such use are just not that
> enlightening.
>
This isn't clear to me, since the "indirect object marker" usage in
TKD appeared in an appendix.
The example in the section on -vaD in TKD seems to be a very
straightforward usage that should be usable in other sentences:
Qu'vaD lI' De'vam
This information is useful for the mission.
We can contrast this with an imaginable English gloss - "This
information for the mission is useful", where "for this mission"
specifies the information referred to instead of specifying the
usefulness. Okrand tends to give alternate glosses where they're
significantly different, so if there isn't one here, it's likely
because the other reading is improbable or impossible. ("This
information for this mission is useful" might be lI' Qu' De'vam.)
