tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 11 00:16:21 1995
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Re: Compound Nouns and N1-N2 (again)
>
> I still read section 3.4 as saying that we can make constructions that
> act like compound nouns, and that if we do this, we get a possessive
> meaning. It states "it is possible to combine nouns IN THE MANNER OF
> A COMPOUND NOUN" (my emphasis). As I see it, this ties compound nouns
> and noun-noun constructions pretty closely. If someone creates a new
> compound noun, I'm going to try to interpret it as a possessive.
>
I just want to point out, that I read (pret.) this section exactly
the same way as ghunchu'wI' does - so you're not alone :-)
I've found myself in the minority however, thus I accept("-choHpu'")
"invented" compounds (i.e. not by Okrand) that are not of
possessive or genitive character as such...
the one problem I see with this is, that different languages
probably have different idiomatic compounds. thus it may become
difficult to communicate for terrans of sufficiently different
cultures using tlhIngan Hol (I'm not a linguist, so if one told
me that a legal compound noun in say german can be understood
properly by say indigenous people of Papua, I'll withdraw my
above objection)
>
> >Here are, it seems to me, the questions we need answers to:
> >
> >a) are compounds and noun-nouns different?
> >b) can we construct novel compounds (or are we restricted to what we find
> > in TKD)?
> >c) if we can construct them, how do we interpret them?
> >
> >Your answers, I'm guessing, are no, no, and n/a. Mine are yes, yes, and
> >we need to know.
>
my 2 cents worth...
a) of course they are!
b) we can surely extend section 3.4. in a way that we
can leave out the blanks in N-N-constructions
to make compounds with the same meaning
list usage suggests we can also create other compound nouns
c) if they are not in TKD, try to interpret them as N-N,
if that fails, have a guess :) (see above)
HomDoq
aka "Dochlangan" Marc
--
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Marc Ruehlaender [email protected]
Universitaet des Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, Germany
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