tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 23 08:52:44 1998

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Re: Fw: Problem with {-meH} and negative meanings

According to Terrence Donnelly:
> 
> At 10:37 AM 1/22/98 -0800, SuStel wrote:
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Terrence Donnelly <[email protected]>
> 
> >>But here is MO using a personalized verb in a {-meH}+noun construction.  I
> >>like it a lot.  It seems more flexible than the {-bogh} construction.
> >
> >More flexible?  It performs a very different function than {-bogh} and in no
> >way replaces it.  I hope that is not what you are advocating with this
> >statement.
> >
> 
> You're right, of course.  I wrote that thinking only of the fact that 
> {-bogh} and {-meH} (in this usage) both modify nouns.  Their meanings
> are certainly very different.  I find the {-meH} usage "more flexible"
> only in that the head noun of the phrase could conceivably be any
> part of speech in the outer (main verb) phrase, while the head noun
> of a {-bogh} construction can only be the subject or object of the
> outer phrase.

{-meH} doesn't have a head noun. Besides the syntactical
difference between {-meH} and {-bogh}, there is a fundamental
difference in grammatical structure between them. If you remove
{-bogh} from a relative clause, you get a sentence. The subject
or object of that sentence also happens to be the subject or
object of the main verb in the larger sentence. That head noun
functions as a noun in both clauses (relative and main) at the
same time.

If you take the {-meH} out of a purpose clause, you also get a
whole sentence. Meanwhile, none of the nouns in that sentence
serve any function at all for the main verb. The whole purpose
clause in its entirety modifies either a noun or the main verb.
There is no head noun.

> -- ter'eS 
> >SuStel
> >Stardate 98057.7

charghwI'

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