tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 27 08:07:40 1998
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Re: RE: KLBC Tribbleball
: Along the same lines, I doubt that the Denebian actually OWNS
: the slime devil. I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion
: before. Holtej, in particular, has had a lot of interest in
: this and has argued this point well. There is canon to argue
: against restricting noun-noun constructions to strict
: possessive meaning.
:
: charghwI' 'utlh
Agreed. Aside from the obvious {tlhIngan Hol}, another example of charghwI's
point is {romuluS HIq} "Romulan ale", which is of course not the ale owned by
Romulus (as if a planet can actually own anything), but rather the {HIq} most
often associated with or originating on the planet Romulus. No doubt,
Romulans
produce many different types of {HIq} -- as mentioned several times in Diane
Duane's fascinating Romulan novel "My Enemy, My Ally" -- but one kind has
become (in)famous throughout the Alpha and Beta quadrants.
Thus, you can hear in a bar the "associative" type of noun-noun construction
(or "noun as adjective"):
romuluS HIq HInob!
Give me some Romulan ale!
or, if you're itching to start a fight with a particularly shifty looking
Romulan sitting in the corner, the possessive noun-noun construction:
romuluSngan HIq HInob!
Give me the Romulan's ale!
___________________________________________________________________________
Steven Boozer The University of Chicago Library [email protected]