tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 25 14:13:01 1995

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Re: Prepositions

peHruS writes concerning various Federation Standard concepts such as 'of'
and 'with'. Unfortunately, these are not FS concepts, but English (FS)
'words'. Words such as these (and most prepositions in general) can represent
several different 'concepts'. I think he raises some good points and puts
challenges before us to expand the 'conceptual' uses of <tlhIngan Hol>.

peHruS said: moQHom Quj loDHom
yoDtargh said: QujtaHvIS loDHompu' moQHom lo' chaH
Neither of these gets across the point that the 'ball' is the purpose or
action of the play.
I would say: QujtaHmeH loDHompu' moQHom lo' chaH

For 'The girls go with the boys to the store' yoDtargh  says:
Suy Daq lughoSDI' loDHompu' tlhej be'Hompu'.

I would question whether <Suy Daq> should be one word or two. Generally (and
I think this would hold for <tlh-H>) when a combination of nouns takes on a
distinct or unique meaning apart from the individual words, it does (and
should) become a single, compund noun. <Suy Daq> means 'the merchant's place
or location' but doesn't mean his place of business. 'Store' is a distinct
location defined by the activities of the merchant. However, <SuyDaq> could
very easily be confused with the locative. Perhaps, <Suy malja' qach> or
simply <malja'qach> or <Suyqach>.

I've noticed a definite trend toward analepsis, or using a noun first in a
sentence and a pronoun which stands for it later in a sentence. The basic
object-verb-subject structure is easy enough to grasp and use; however, when
the sentences have relative phrases, where should the subject and/or object
appear? And where should the pronouns which stand in their steads appear?

Is <QujDI' (chaH) tlhejchuq loDHompu'> any less correct or clear than <QujDI'
loDHompu' tlhejchuq (chaH)>?

peHruS said: nItlhDajDaq Qeb ghajbe'taHvIS be'vetlh leghpu'mo' Human vaj
nayta' be' 'e' Sovbe' ghaH.

yoDtargh replied: Note that {Human} and {ghaH} can refer to a human of either
gender. To specify a "man", you could use {loD}.  You could also substitute
{ghaj} with {tuQ}.

I say that the reason lies in the ring not being on her finger. Therefore:
leghDI' loD nItlhDajDaq Qeb tuQbe'taHmo' be' vay' nayta' 'e' Sovbe'.

This previous statement is a perfect example analepsis and prolepsis:
when MAN sees HER - because WOMAN isn't wearing a ring on her finger - HE
doesn't know that SHE is married to someone.

The concepts of above, below, etc are pretty well described in TKD 3.4.

<Dung> area above               <'o'> area behind
<bIng> area below               <Huv> area outside
<retlh> area beside             <yoS> area around
<'et> area in front

I can't think of anything to represent the area INSIDE something. Ideas
anyone? Because these ideas are nouns, they are generally used with the
locative <-Daq>.

Brad

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