tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 28 22:20:30 1998
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Re: KLBC Poetry (the child is happy)
edy jang Qov:
>} HeDaq naghvam vImaS law' waqwIjDaq naghvetlh vImaS puS
>
>This isn't quite the form of an {X Q law' Y Q puS}. You need a verb of state
>or quality in the Q position.
Yeah, this is the mutant nongrammatical form that Nick Nicholas tended to
sprinkle through his writings. :-/
[_paghmo' tIn mIS_, lut 'ay' wa', lut 'ay'Hom wa']
be'terIS: mumuSHa' loD 'e' 'Ip 'e' vIQoychugh, 'ej Qa'vaD jach targhwIj
'e' vIQoychugh, vaj targh vImaS law' loD vImaS puS.
This line bothered me as soon as I saw it, but as I was merely a player and
not an editor, I decided not to challenge it. I now regret that decision.
>And I didn't think this all the way through
>before I threw it back at you. "A stone in the road" in this context is the
>Cat in the Hat problem.
I've usually dismissed the Cat in the Hat problem as a non-problem. Most of
the time, I would just use a noun-noun construction with no locative:
{He nagh qaq law' waq nagh qaq puS}.
"A course's rock is preferable to a shoe's rock."
>To be most certain of this one, I'd use:
>
>nagh Daq vIqeltaHvIS He qaq law' waqwIj qaq puS
>When I consider the site of a stone, the road is better than my shoe.
majQa'! Well done! This is a very good way of doing it, by comparing
the locations and not the rocks themselves.
>If I were just saying it without time to think about it, I'd likely have
>said {?HeDaq nagh qaq law' waqwIjDaq nagh qaq puS} but I'm not sure I can do
>that.
I'm not sure either, but I'm not willing to state that it *can't* be done
that way. {law'/puS} is odd enough that it seems possible that the locative
can at least pretend to apply to the verb of quality. We already have the
{QamvIS Hegh qaq law' torvIS yIn qaq puS} from STVI (and KGT p.95) to show
us that extra clauses can fit in or next to the X Q and Y Q slots.
-- ghunchu'wI'