tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 18 09:06:43 1994

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Re: KLBC: prepositional phrases



According to Mark E. Shoulson:
> 
> 
> >From: [email protected] (Bill Willmerdinger)
> >Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 22:14:12 -0500
> 
> > uu> 3. Got me; there's no word for inside.
> 
> >Perhaps not, but there *is* a word for "outside": {Hur}.
> 
> >Hmmm....
> 
> >charghwI', add a way of negating a noun to your not-so-short list!
> 
> Negating a *noun*?  Eww.  

I agree that the idea gives me shivers. I'd sooner kiss a
tribble.

> There's very little that can be said about
> negated nouns, leastways not in general.  What's the negation of "book"?
> ... A word for "inside" is actually already on
> my own list, and has been for a while (ever since A. Appleyard started
> coming up with his millions of prepositional suffixes intead of looking
> at nouns like "bIng" and "Dung" as examples).  A few other
> directional/positional words would also be helpful, I imagine.
> 
> ~mark

Well, for inside, I would either use the noun {botlh} or make a
relative clause using {ngaS}. {qatu' 'e' mura' loD'e' ngaSbogh
Dujvetlh.} "The captain inside the ship ordered me to find
you." [literally, "The captain, whom the ship contains, ordered
me that I find you."] {Sor botlhDaq Sor HoHta' ghewmey.} "Bugs
inside the tree killed the tree." [literally, "At the tree's
center, bugs accomplished killing the tree."]

I don't see the void of a word for "inside" to be quite as
linguistically challenging as the void for the adjective or
question word "which", as in "Which one of the shiny helmets
should I choose?" Even Okrand can't work round this one, since
in ST3, he translated, "I don't care which one" as {jISaHbe'}.
In other words, he copped out.

charghwI'



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