tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jun 18 12:25:52 2000
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RE: Thinking the sentence structure
- From: [email protected] (William Martin)
- Subject: RE: Thinking the sentence structure
- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 15:25:06 -0400
- Importance: Normal
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marc Ruehlaender [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Friday, June 16, 2000 4:08 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Thinking the sentence structure
>
> _jatlh_ SuStel:
...
> > > This raises the question
> > > as to whether objects marked with -Daq as in {juHwIjDaq vIghoS} may
> > > be followed by adverbials as well: ?{juHwIjDaq QIt vIghoS} and how
> > > this "interferes" with your interpretation of how words with suffixes
> > > are analyzed.
> >
> >
> > No, no, you're missing the point. Don't think of /juHwIjDaq/
> as an object
> > /juHwIj/ marked with /-Daq/. Think of /juHwIjDaq/ as the
> object. That's
> > what it's doing.
>
> I believe you misunderstood my question.
>
> in {juHwIj'e' QIt vIghoS} also {juHwIj'e'} is the object,
> not a "non-object noun phrase", still it is marked with -'e',
> which allows the adverbial {QIt} to _follow_ it rather than
> precede it. My conjecture is that this is (in no' Hol) "wrong"
> but has become accepted over time, because typically nouns
> with a type five suffix _precede_ the adverbial.
It has long been my belief that Okrand gave us this construction in order to
disambiguate certain adverbial references. This is not a great example, but:
nom pawbogh jaghwIj vISuvrup.
Which is quick, my preparation or his arrival?
pawbogh jaghwIj'e' nom vISuvrup. I am quickly ready to fight my arriving
enemy.
nom pawbogh jaghwIj'e' vISuvrup. I am ready to fight my quickly arriving
ENEMY.
> IF this is what happened, then I guess objects(!) that are
> marked with -Daq might _precede_ an adverbial as well,
> although it does NOT follow that this is (in modern Hol)
> acceptable.
This is a remarkable stretch. Just because {-Daq} and {-'e'} are both Type 5
suffixes doesn't mean that a rule explicitly applied only to {-'e'} should
be extended to {-Daq} without any explanation or usage example from Okrand.
> and IF this is what happened, it would give some weight
> to the theory that Klingons DO recognize suffixes as such
> and DON'T necesserily synthesize them with the root to form
> a new "word"
The suffix certainly changes the grammatical function of the root word. Suv
is a verb. SuvwI' is a noun. SuvwI'mo' is neither an object nor a subject.
You don't need to consider this to be a "new word" in order to recognize
that it now has a function in the sentence defined by its suffix.
> however, this has no bearing on the classification of
> "non-object noun phrases" (NONP), as I see it: it doesn't matter
> whether there's a suffix involved or not, i.e. there is
> indeed no need to seperate "time stamps" from other NONP
> that might include a type five noun suffix.
I agree with the substance of your supposition, though I get to it by
another route. Instead of assuming that Time Stamps are like Type 5 nouns
and refusing to remove them from that class, I initially look at Time Stamps
and notice that they function like Type 5 nouns and add them to that class.
More accurately, I see Time Stamps as a sort of adverbial offering context
for the action of the verb. This is what Type 5 suffixed nouns do as well.
> Marc Ruehlaender
> aka HomDoq
> [email protected]
charghwI'