tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 08 14:33:56 1998

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Re: Fw: walls

On Tue, 8 Dec 1998 13:54:27 -0800 (PST) Marc Ruehlaender 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> jItlhob:
> > > should we say {qama' cha' raQ} for "two prisoner camps"?
> > > I didn't think so...
> > 
> jang charghwI':
> > I would have thought so. As {cha' qama' raQ}, it would mean "the 
> > camp of two prisoners" or "two prisoners' camp". As {qama' cha' 
> > raQ} it means either "the two camps of prisoners" or "the 
> > prisoners' two camps", both of which make good sense.
> > 
> hmmm... interpreting N-N as a unit, I would have said
> {cha' qama' raQ} for both "(two-prisoner)-camp(s)" and 
> "two prisoner-camps" and let context sort it out.
> 
> {qama' cha' raQ} might (besides "prisoners' two camps")
> mean "prisoner #2's camp", so this isn't unambiguous either.
> 
> Do I have to believe you are right or do we have canon either way?

I don't know the canon for sure... Hope voragh can help us out 
there. And you don't have to believe I'm right. It's just the 
way I would have done it. Given that I've seen {-bogh} clauses 
in the middle of a noun-noun construction, I see no reason to 
not put a number in the middle. I think there have been 
adjectivals in the middle as well. The noun-noun bond seems to 
be one where either noun can be a noun phrase. Possibly even 
both could be noun phrases. I don't see noun-noun as a unit with 
boundaries that take precident over the boundaries around the 
noun phrase belonging to one of the two nouns.

That's where your perspective differs from mine. You see 
noun-noun as elemental. I see it as molecular.

Hmmm. Thinking more on it, I guess these different kinds of noun 
phrases can act as elements in each other.

Number + noun + adjective seems most elemental to me. I would 
not break up a number from the noun it is applied to. I would 
not break up an adjective from the noun it applies to. I would 
break up the two nouns of noun-noun with words that are part of 
a noun phrase applied to one or the other of the two nouns.

Relative clauses can break up a noun-noun construction, though 
noun-noun can also be applied to one of the nouns in a relative 
clause, so long as that noun-noun as noun phrase is functioning 
inside the relative clause in terms of its meaning.

A black targ's bone:

targh qIj Hom

I'd never say it as {targh Hom qIj}. That would mean a targ's 
black bone.

Meanwhile, if I mean a targ's black bone, I'd say:

targh qIjbogh Hom

I would not say:

qIjbogh targh Hom

See?

You are right about the ambiguity of my choice about the 
prisoner. 

qama' cha' raQ could well be "Prisoner #2's camp". Okrand 
intentionally has some ambiguities build into the language, and 
in this case, I'm comfortable with context typically 
disambiguating this phrase. If need be, we can always drop back 
to {raQ'e' Dabbogh qama' cha'} vs {cha' raQ'e' Dabbogh qamapu'}.

Basically, I consider where the rest of the noun phrase is 
functioning. For me, the number two is applied to camps, not to 
prisoners and placing it before the word {qama'} is applying it 
to the word for prisoners. Each noun in a noun-noun can be a 
noun phrase, so I don't have a problem with placing the number 
between the nouns.
 
>                                            Marc Ruehlaender
>                                            aka HomDoq
>                                            [email protected]

charghwI' 'utlh

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