tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 05 20:58:02 1998

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Re: KLBC: Trying to translate qIDHom

jIghItlh 'ej ghItlh ~mark:

>>}<veng wa'DIchDaq ghaHtaH> alone is "He is in the First City". To say
>"The
>>}warrior is in the First City", we need to add <SuvwI''e'> because the
>>}pronoun <ghaH> acts as a verb, right? (I find no canon to explicitly
>support
>>}it or forbid it, but it seems consistent with other 6.3. usage.) So in
this
>>}case I believe I added <-'e'> correctly. No emphasis on <SuvwI'>
>intended or
>>}implied.
>
>Hmm. See, I've never been sure about this one. The mandatory -'e' seems
>to be given only when a pronoun is used to "equate" two nouns, i.e. N
>pronoun N'e'. In this case, we're not equating anything; this is
>qualitatively different. We're using the pronoun as an existential "to
>be", not an equation. I think we went through this once before. I tend to
>think that the -'e' really isn't necessary here. Canon disagrees with me,
>in that it seems always to have the -'e', so what do I know? I could
>answer that those happens to be sentences in which the noun is emphasized,
>but that's reaching. Even assuming I'm right (for whatever reason you'd do
>something like that), I could easily see that language development would
>select towards requiring the -'e' in this case, as speakers try to make the
>similar constructions conform to one another.

Wait a minute - here's the rule. 6.3. gives examples of pronouns as "To be",
including:

<pa'wIjDaq jIHtaH> "I am in my quarters."

In the next paragraph, MO writes (p. 68):

"In the above examples, the subjects are pronouns. If the subject is a noun,
it follows the third-person pronoun...and takes the <-'e'> "topic"
suffix...."

Thus in ALL cases where a third-person pronoun is used as a 'noun
placeholder / verb' in a 'to-be' construction, regardless of there being an
object or location, the <-'e'> is used. Unless there's canon or a
MO-pronouncement I have not heard, I'm still right. (Whew!)

Qermaq

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