tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 14 21:03:44 1998

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Re: Top Gun reply to KLBC

Hi Tim - welcome to the list.

>I understand it a little. When I looked up the superlative construction in
>the TKD all the law'/puS examples were sentences. So I thought that the
>law'/puS construction was a sentence. Now given that, 'e' in the second
>sentence dose not mean "them" it means "that". So in English the two
>sentences are like;
>
>"These guys are the best. Iceman is better than that."

Let me see if I can help you understand...or if you've got it, someone
else...

<Top Gun> ghojwI'pu' po' law' Hoch po' puS = "Top Gun"'s learner's are the
most skilled"

<Iceman> po' law' 'e' po' puS =? "Iceman" is more skilled than the situation
described in the previous sentence."

See now why the construction is faulty? <'e'> always refers to the situation
described by the previous sentence. Example: If I say <yIH DaHoH 'e' vIlegh>
I don't necessarily see the tribble - well, probably I do, but that's not
really what the sentence says. It says "I see the situation described by
'You kill the tribble'" - in other words, "I see that you kill the tribble",
or "I see you kill the tribble".

In your example the 'situation of the previous sentence' is "Top Gun's
learners are the most skilled". The whole construction can only be
interpreted as "Iceman is more skilled than 'Top Gun's learners are the most
skilled'." Makes no sense. You'd need to reiterate the "Top Gun" part or use
the pronoun as Qov so correctly showed you. The <e'> can only refer to the
previous sentence as a WHOLE. Not a prominent noun or any other part.

And Qov is also right that we have no way of saying for sure that <'e'> can
be one of the two compared nouns in a SAO construction. But I suspect this
is at worst intelligible - <jajlo' ghopDu'wIj vIlo'taHvIS qagh vISop 'e' pov
law' Ho''oy' pov puS> "I eat qagh with my hands at dawn. It's better than a
toothache."

Qermaq

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