tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 12 14:27:07 1995
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Re: }} {-wI'} on sentences
- From: "R.B Franklin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: }} {-wI'} on sentences
- Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 11:27:07 -0700 (PDT)
Fri, 11 Aug 1995, ghItlh ghunchu'wI':
> You falsely accuse me, sir. I am not "making up" a rule. I learned in 4th
> grade this feature of the "ACTOR" transformation in English grammar. My
> specific example of "meat eater" comes from a discussion my class had when
> we were discussing adjectives, and our teacher told us that "meat" is NOT
> an adjective in that phrase.
You are correct, in this example, "meat" is not an adjective, it is an
attributive noun. Adjectives are a part of speech whose function is to
modify nouns. In English, many nouns can be used as adjectives. They
are technically not adjectives, they are attributive nouns.
E.g. "Wide" is an adjective. "City" is a noun.
wide streets ("wide" is an adjective, modifying "streets")
city streets ("city is an attributive noun, modifying streets")
> As it happens, "slow eater" was an example given in the aforementioned
> discussion of a phrase which DOES have an adjective in front of "eater".
> But I see a clear distinction between "an eater who is slow" and "an eater
> of meat". The first case has a descriptive word applied to the noun
> "eater", while the second has an object on the verb "eat".
The word "meat" in "meat eater" in also an attributive noun. "Meat" is
neither an adjective not the object of eat.
Here's a different example. {romuluSngan maghwI'} means "Romulan traitor".
{maghwI'} means "one who betrays". {romuluSngan} is an attributive noun
desribing the race of the "betrayer" or "traitor"; the traitor is a
Romulan. {romuluSngan} is not the object of the verb in {maghwI'}. You
would not use {romuluSngan maghwI'} to refer to a Ferengi who works for
the Romulans and betrayed them. You would refer to such a person as
{romuluSngan maghbogh verengan} or {verengan maghwI'}.
{romuluSngan maghwI'} is also not possessive. The traitor is not owned or
possessed by the Romulans.
I believe that the first noun in a N-N construction can behave like an
attributive noun.
> >> It's probably an accident that it matches the word order for genitive or
> >> adjective, or maybe the English adjective form is derived from the "noun
> >> clause" form.)
> >There is no noun clause here. There is a noun with a modifier
> >which happens to be another noun. I believe that the most
> >common interpretation would be that the first noun is genitive.
I think some of the these terms are being used rather loosely and
inaccurately.
"Possessive" describes ownership; it answers the question "whose".
E.g. Whose book is that? {ghunchu'wI' paq 'oH.} (It's ghunchu'wI''s book.)
"Genitive" includes the possessive, but it can also denote a relation.
You can describe the innumerable uses of "of" as genitive.
"an act of agression"; "a glass of water", "a house of straw", "the
reading of a book"; "the Book of John".
For the record, I don't think the N-N construction can have all the uses
or meanings the word "of" does in English. I would translate some of the
above examples differently in Klingon without using a N-N construction.
"Adjectives" are a part of speech whose function is to modify nouns:
"big", "bad", "heavy", "slow".
"Attributive nouns" are nouns that are semantically functioning in the
role of an adjective:
"music festival", "rain poncho"; "insect repellant"; "love song"
In Klingon, you would often make a compound noun to translate these but
we also some canon examples of some attributive N-N constructions.
Compare the following:
the dinosaur's book possessive the book is owned by a dinosaur
the book of dinosaurs genitive the book relates to dinosaurs
the dinosaur book attributive dinosaur describes the type of book
> -- ghunchu'wI'
yoDtargh