tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 11 22:09:57 1995
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Re: }} {-wI'} on sentencesQ: N-N = genitive? (was: -wI' on sentences)
- From: "R.B Franklin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: }} {-wI'} on sentencesQ: N-N = genitive? (was: -wI' on sentences)
- Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 19:09:57 -0700 (PDT)
On Fri, 11 Aug 1995, Marc Ruehlaender wrote:
> I would like to know how far this interpretation really
> should go (I don't own HolQeD 3:3, so if the answer is there,
> tell me to buy it :-). In a recent post, ~mark mentioned
> "captain's hitting" and it struck me, that this perfectly
> fits the formula from TKD, while it surely stretches the
> "possessive" interpretation. So if "qIptaHghach" is o.k.
> for "hitting", can "HoD qIptaHghach" be used for both
> 'the act of the captain hitting s.o.' and 'the act of
> s.o. hitting the captain'?
That's a very interesting question. My interpretation of the N-N
construction is probably strongly colored by my understanding of
the genitive case in Russian. In Russian, the genitive can either
denote the agent of an action or to denote the recipient of the action.
Penie devushki (The girl's singing) "Girl" is the agent of the "singing".
Penie romansa (The singing of a love song) "Love song" is the object of
the action, "singing".
Without further clarification from Okrand, I suspect {HoD qIptaHghach} is
just as ambiguous in Klingon as "the hitting of the captain" is in English.
The captain could either be the agent or the recipient of the hitting.
> Marc 'Dochlangan'
yoDtargh