tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 23 13:52:59 1998
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Re: noun suffixes on adj?
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: noun suffixes on adj?
- Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:52:58 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:24:05 -0700 (PDT) Steven Boozer
<[email protected]> wrote:
> K'ryntes wrote:
>
> : TKD p. 50 has a type 5 noun suffix on a verb.
> :
> : veng tInqu'Daq
> :
> : Now, I realize the verb is acting as an adjective but I find this confusing.
> : Is this just an exception or do all adj take noun suffixes such as...
> :
> : veng tInqu'wIjDaq (in my very big city)
No. That would be {vengwIj tInqu'Daq.} Only the Type 5 goes to
the verb/adjective.
> : And why is Daq on tIn in the first place? You aren't in "big" you're in
> : "city".
Consider this:
1. You don't want a lot of verb suffixes on a verb while it is
being used as an adjective. {-qu'} is an exception because it
adds meaning sometimes to adjectives. Meanwhile, a lot of the
suffixes would do really weird things to the meaning of an
adjective, since they deal with subjects and objects (like
{-lu'} or {-moH} and while acting as an adjective, verbs don't
deal with subjects or objects. There were a couple of other
suffixes besides {-qu'} that could work here, and we DO have the
example of {-be'} being used on the audiotape Conversational
Klingon in the counting exercise where we get: {wa'maH yIHmey
lI'be'}. So, we know we can use {-qu'} and {-be'} and a lot of
us would LIKE to be able to use {-Ha'}, but most other verb
suffixes would be absurd to use on verbs while they act as
adjectives.
2. Since Type 5 suffixes define the grammatical function as
something outside of the main clause in the sentence (it makes
nouns not act as either subject or object), it is much less
confusing to have that shown for the whole noun phrase and not
for just the noun itself.
Look at the mess we'd have otherwise:
*vengwIjDaq tInqu' qama'pu' DIjon.
Reading from left to right (or hearing the words one at a time)
you get:
vengwIjDaq - "In my city"
vengwIjDaq tInqu' - "In my city, He/she/it/they is/are very big"
vengwIjDaq tInqu' qama'pu' - "The prisoners in our city are very
big." [Complete sentence. I might stop listening at this point.]
vengwIjDaq tInqu' qama'pu' DIjon. "The prisoners in our city are
very big. We capture them."
Now, look at what happens when you do it the way Okrand shows us:
vengwIj - "My city"
vengwIj tInqu'Daq - "In my very big city"
vengwIj tInqu'Daq qama'pu' - "In my very big city, something
happens to prisoners."
vengwIj tInqu'Daq qama'pu' DIjon - "In my very big city, we
capture prisoners."
I love the way well formed Klingon sentences flow. As each word
appears, you can tell exactly how it is to be used as you hear
it. There are exceptions to this, but it is this quality that I
seek to exploit most heavily when I'm wording my Klingon
sentences.
I credit Okrand with nothing short of genius in his ability to
take something like this, which at first glimpse looks to be an
arbitrary quirk that he threw in, as voragh suggests here, just
to make it quirky so it will be more like a "natural" language,
but if I look closer, I see a beautiful functionality added by
this "quirk".
I don't think this is an accident. I don't think it is a quirk.
I think it is a tool to make expression more clear as it is
spoken than it would be if this "quirk" were absent.
> : If this is just one exception, that if you use a verb to modify a noun and
> you
> : want to say you are to, in, at, or on that noun then put Daq after the
> : verb....fine. But does it include all noun suffixes or all type 5 noun
> : suffixes or just Daq?
All Type 5 suffixes. It will consistently work as I describe
above. Other noun suffixes don't need to go after the verb
because without Type 5 suffixes, nouns are generally subjects or
objects and their position will combine with their adjective's
position to be unambiguous, unlike they would in the first
example I give above where this "quirk" is absent.
> Okrand states the rule in TKD p.50:
>
> If a Type 5 noun suffix is used (section 3.3.5), it follows the verb,
> which, when used to modify the noun in this way, can have no other
> suffix except the rover {-qu'} "emphatic". The Type 5 noun suffix
> follows {-qu'} ... {veng tInqu'Daq} "in the very big city."
>
> He seems to mean all Type 5 noun suffixes (-Daq, -mo', -vaD, -vo', -'e')
> though, except for the example in TKD, I could find no other examples with one
> used with {-qu'} on a stative verb modifying a noun in this fashion.
The only odd one is {-'e'}, since that one does not involve
position in the same way the others do. Likely, it would conform
simply to be like the other Type 5s, but there is not the
driving reason to move {-'e'} to the adjective as there is for
the other Type 5 noun suffixes.
> I think this was one of those counter-intuitive little rules Okrand purposely
> built into the language to make it seem more "natural" -- like the annoying
> rule about not using Type 7 aspect suffixes on the second verb in a complex
> sentence with {'e'} and {net}.
I can't believe that THAT annoying rule didn't come from some
backfit for a weird line in ST3, though I'm not positive which
one. It might be something valQIS said or something that got
changed after the subtitle was set.
...
> Purely as a learner's trick to remember the rule, consider {veng tIn} and
> {veng
> tInqu'} as noun phrases, with the noun suffix {-Daq} tacked on the end:
>
> (veng tInq)Daq
> (veng tInqu')Daq
>
> Other examples of {-Daq} on "noun phrases", which I've marked:
>
> (lojmIt poS)Daq Daq pagh.
> No one eavesdrops at an open door. PK
Note that if it were written differently, it would have
different meaning:
lojmItDaq poS Daq pagh.
Location zero is open at the door.
> wa' (Dol nIv)Daq matay'DI' maQap
> We succeed together in a greater whole. TKW
wa' DolDaq nIv matay'DI' maQap.
It is great when we are together in one whole. We succeed.
> (yo' qIj)Daq vavpu'ma' DImuv
> we ... join our fathers in the Black Fleet (Anthem)
yo'Daq qIj vavpu'ma' DImuv
Our fathers are black in the fleet. We join them.
> (qep'a' wejDIch)Daq jatlhtaH tlhIngan Hol HaDwI'pu'. (Expert Forum BBS,
> 11/96)
This one is not like the others because {wejDIch} is not really
an adjective. It is a number. Perhaps it functions as an
adjective. Still, it is not ambiguous like an adjective because
it ALWAYS follows the noun it modifies, whereas normal
adjectival verbs serve a different function when they preceed
their attached nouns.
> Although {wejDIch} isn't "quality" or "stative verb", the pattern seems to be
> the same.
Likely just to be simpler.
> If this works, then I imagine you could say {veng tInqu'wIjDaq} instead of
> {vengwIj tInqu'Daq} for "in my very big city", though I couldn't find an
> example either way. Can anyone else think of one?
This would be very ugly. There is no reason to move a Type 4 noun
suffix to the associated verb. It doesn't clarify anything. All
it does is put a noun suffix on a verb when the function of that
suffix is much more attached to the noun than to the noun
phrase. It is MUCH clearer if you leave {-wIj} on the noun.
> BTW: Note that "no other suffix except the rover {-qu'}" means you cannot say
> *{veng tInchu'Daq}, *{veng tInbejDaq}, *{veng tInbe'Daq}, etc.
because of our example with {yIHmey lI'be'}, likely you COULD
use {veng tInbe'Daq}. That's the only one we'd be allowed to use
so far. I could see Type 6 verb suffixes being an exception
someday, but not yet.
> Stative verbs
> formed with {-Ha'} *might* be an exception, however -- ?{veng quvHa'Daq} "in
> the dishonored city", ?{veng QuchHa'Daq} "in the unhappy city", etc. -- though
> I could find no examples of this pattern either. We need to ask Maltz.
We don't have any yet, though the use of {-be'} does suggest it
is reasonably likely. I wouldn't do it until Okrand showed us
such an example, but I would not be surprised at all if he
eventually does so.
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Voragh "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons lis est." Horace (Ars Poetica)
charghwI'