tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 06 01:51:23 1995
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Re: }} -mo' and N1's N2
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: }} -mo' and N1's N2
- Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 00:51:23 -0500
janSiy writes:
>TKD 6.7 (p.179): "the adverbial precedes the object-verb-noun
>construction." Reading that in context it is pretty clear to me that
>{nom pumtaHvIS nagh jIghItlh} = I write as the rock quickly falls.
>and
>{pumtaHvIS nagh nom jIghItlh} = I write quickly as the rock falls.
>
>It turns out that -wI' is unique in this since the verb is no longer a
>verb in the sentence and so can still confuse the adverb. Doesn't make
>it right or wrong, but it does change your argument.
Thank you for citing the addendum's clarification about the placement of
adverbials. It doesn't change my thesis that {-wI'} can operate on
sentences and not simply on naked verbs. However, it does slightly weaken
my argument that using adverbials and type 9 suffixes together necessarily
creates ambiguity.
{nom pumtaHvIS nagh jIghItlh} still is ambiguous, but given that one can
say {pumtaHvIS nagh nom jIghItlh} quite easily, one can infer that the
adverbial is intended to apply to the verb immediately following it. When
the type 9 suffix creates a subordinate clause, placing the main verb's
adverb after the subordinate clause does resolve the ambiguity.
Fortunately, this option is also available when there is just an object and
no subordinate clause. Further on in TKD's addendum section 6.7, we find
"The adverbial may actually follow the object noun (but still precede the
verb) when the object noun is topicalized by means of the noun suffix
-'e'." This permits us to counter charghwI's so-called "royal mess" quite
nicely.
QIt Hergh QaywI' yInob. "Give him an IV drip."
Hergh QaywI''e' QIt yInob. "Slowly give him a hypo."
Given that {adv N Vbogh vay'} already should be understood by everyone, I
don't intend to start peppering my prose with {adv N VwI'}. I still think
{N VwI'} is better explained as a sentence with a type 9 suffix than as an
extension of the noun-noun "possessive" construction.
-- ghunchu'wI'