tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 22 14:08:40 1995
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'Iv as pronoun?
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: 'Iv as pronoun?
- Date: Wed, 22 Mar 95 17:08:37 EST
Seeing the title on a recent post: {qeylIS ghaH 'Iv?}, I've come
to wonder:
If 'Iv is treated like a noun in its grammatical placement in a
sentence, replacing the noun being asked about, might we extend
this to say that it would be treated like a pronoun? By that, I
mean, can we use it for the verb "to be"?
In other words, I think perhaps the question should have been:
qeylIS 'Iv?
Otherwise, the title should have included the suffix {-'e'},
and I don't really like {qeylIS ghaH 'Iv'e'?}. For one thing, I
don't recall that we have license to use a noun suffix on 'Iv.
Instead, it would have to be {'Iv ghaH qeylIS'e'?}.
But if we can't use noun suffixes on 'Iv, how do we ask, "For
whom does the bell toll?" And if we CAN put noun suffixes on
'Iv for the same reasons we can put some of them on pronouns,
then can we also use VERB suffixes, as we do on pronouns?
naDev 'IvtaH? Who is here? [said while entering a dark room]
nuq DaQub?
charghwI'
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