tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 10 07:41:36 1995

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Re: Analysis of {mo'taq lut}

(written Tuesday, March 28)

>From A.Appleyard's analysis:
> *  ghojtaHghach taghmeH ghojtaHghach taghbogh De''e' lo' vaj 'e' 'ut
> @ It is necessary that warrior uses information which begins continuous
>   learning for the purpose of beginning continuous learning

janSIy's comment:
>Oh man do I hate that sentence, but it does say what I wanted it to.

Unfortunately, I think it says it in an ungrammatical way.  Twice, I've 
posted sentences that fit the "It is necessary that..." pattern.  The first
time I didn't know better; the second was due to my laziness and lack of
attention to detail.  I now understand my error, and I wish to share my
understanding.  

{'ut} "be essential, necessary" is what we call a "stative" verb.  It
"expresses a quality or condition."  It does not take a direct object.  
Your sentence can be reduced to {'e' 'ut}, which "translates" as
"[no subject] is necessary the previous clause."  It is marginally
understandable, but only because the translation happens to match a
combination of passive voice and sentence-as-subject that exists in
English.  As I have often been reminded, tlhIngan Hol has no way to
use a sentence as a subject.

In this case, there's an easy solution.  Use the verb suffix {-nIS}:
{ghojtaHghach taghmeH ghojtaHghach taghbogh De''e' lo'nIS vaj}
                                                   ^^^^^^
I ask forgiveness for presuming to speak of things grammatical.  Since
I have been told firmly to "deal with" this situation, I wanted to make
sure nobody else continued to make the same mistake I did.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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