tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 04 12:16:32 1998
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Re: SuvwI'bom
mujang HomDoq:
>> ><<ponglIj nuq?>> DamaS qar'a'?
>> ghobe'. <ponglIj 'oH nuq'e'> vImaS.
>>
>well.. I was just referring to "as opposed to <<nuq 'oH ponglIj'e'?>>
>I didn't realize you have a dislike for the nuq-as-pronoun sentence.
Using the "clipped" phrasing obscures the question: When using a pronoun
as "to be", which noun makes more sense as the subject, and which makes
more sense as the object?
>essentially I'm asking, whether you believe the relationship between
>Object (noun preceding the pronoun-as-verb) and Subject is the same
>in Klingon and in English (in sentences like "A targh is an animal."
>where "a targh" is the subject if I'm not mistaken).
Yes, that's the way I see it. Pronouns should not indicate "identity"
but "category". I want to be able to put an article, either definite
"the" or indefinite "a" or "an",
>In that case, you seem to see names as referring to a single "object"
>(namely the label as such) not to the whole set of people that could
>be referred to by it. And the noun "my name" refers to the whole set
>of labels by which that person can be referred. qar'a'?
Not quite. I see a name as being a thing that refers to a person, but
I don't see that sort of reference working well as the object of a
"pronoun-as-be" sentence. I can accept "I am Marc" a lot better than
"My name is Marc" when using Klingon grammar -- I think the statement
"I am a Marc" works okay.
>this could be described by saying "is a kind of" instead of "is".
>is that what you mean?
Either "is a kind of" or "is one of", yes.
>so you don't find anything strange about <nuq'e' Dalegh?> or
><targh legh 'Iv'e'?> either? "As for the what, you see it." and
>"As for the who, she sees the targh." don't sound right to me.
>(or, if you prefer, "Who, and only who, sees the targh.",
>"It is who (and not someone else) who sees the targh.",
>"WHO sees the targh.", note that I didn't use question marks)
These all seem fine to me. Interrogatives *do* imply questions by
definition.
>Maybe I just misunderstand the meaning of topic. Maybe if I knew
>a "real" language with topic markers on question words...
My preference for the word order of an introduction is not a matter of
topic. It's a matter of what a "to be" sentence really means.