tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 23 07:40:47 1995
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Re: More on "Which?"
>Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 03:47:03 -0400
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: [email protected]
>The more I think about this problem, the better I like the suggestion of
><nuqDIch>. This seems [to me] particularly appropriate when asking which of
>a number of things might be chosen.
>Still, I wish to being up another construction:
>targhmey nuq targh Daje' DaneH
>= Which targ are you going to buy?
>Here we see redundancy being employed to indicate the question: which? In
>that Klingons have a tendency to "clip" almost as much as they can get away
>with, <targhmey> will often get dropped, leaving:
>nuq targh Daj' DaneH
As I said, I have my doubts about <nuqDIch>, being a numeric-oriented
suffix attached to a non-numeric question-word. But it's cerftainly
possible. "targhmey nuq" or "targh nuq" is the construction I personally
favor. I don't see, though, how clipping "targhmey nuq" can yield "nuq
targh". That's not a clip; that's a transposition (something we really
don't have evidence for).
>Is this going to cause problems? Now we have a noun-noun construct <nuq
>targh>. Does this mean "targ of what" or "what targ," quite literally in
>that order.
I don't see much support for "nuq targh" from a semantic perspective, so
long as it's considered a noun-noun construction. If you're using
noun-noun logic, "targh[mey] nuq" makes MUCH more sense. Using "nuq targh"
implies that you're re-interpreting "nuq" as something that acts like a
numeral (as in "?nuqDIch"?), since numerals precede the noun.
Once more, with feeling. To me, "nuq targh" means "the targh of what,"
whatever that means, while "targh[mey] nuq" means "what of the targh[s],"
which might be restricted idiomatically to the meaning "which targh."
"?nuqDIch" doesn't work for me, since I don't see "nuq" as being numeric.
These are my opinions, not necessarily Okrand's, but then you asked for
opinions, didn't you?
I hope this helps answer what you wanted to know.
~mark