tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 29 14:15:59 1996
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Re: Instruments
On Mon, 29 Jul 1996, A.Appleyard wrote:
> Someone a few days ago (sorry, I forget who) said that he thought that (if X
> is a verb) {X-wI'} is the agent only, not the instrument also as we have been
> thinking. TKD says that an {X-wI'} is "(a) one who is X [presumably if X is an
> adjective-verb], (b) one who does X, (c) thing which does X".
...
> In TKD I have found a quantity of {X-wI'} nouns where the verb {X} is listed
> also, including some tools for X-ing with:-
numerous examples followed, which I have narrowed down to:
> HotlhwI' N scanner
> nejwI' N probe
I think I see your confusion. You seem to be translating {XwI'} as
"thing used for Xing". I like that; and I think it would be
intriguing if the language did that. Sadly, however, that is not the
case. No matter how much fun that would be, we are told very specifically
that {-wI'} means "one who does, thing which does". Yes it is true
that a HotlhwI' is a "thing used for scanning", but that is ONLY
because it's very convenient to use a "thing which scans" when scanning.
bIyaj'a'
janSIy