tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 22 18:32:38 2002

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Re: agentive -wI'

Will wrote:
>A {bomwI'} is a singer. Not a song singer. That would be a {bom bomwI'}. 
>One who conquers it/him/her/them would be {'oH/ghaH/ghaH/chaH charghwI'}.

I wrote:
> tagha' 'ang'egh jIH HoHwI'.
>
> Finally, he who kills me reveals himself.

Will wrote:
>The problem here is that when a pronoun is the possessor, you represent this 
in 
>Klingon with a Type 4 noun suffix instead of using the pronoun itself 
(except 
>in a couple strange locative constructions I'll leave undescribed at this 
>point). This should be:
>
>tagha' 'ang'egh HoHwI'wI'.

Ah....  I do understand possessive suffixes, I simply had no idea that when 
you used the example {bom bomwI'} "He who sings the song", you were using a 
genitive construction.  I thought you were taking the sentence {bom bom} "He 
sings a song" and adding {-wI'} to the subject.  Now I believe you were 
saying "The singer of the song", basically.

But now I'm puzzled by your other example: {chaH charghwI'} "The conqueror of 
them".  If mine is {HoHwI'wI'}, shouldn't yours be {charghwI'chaj}?

I wrote:
> And if it is correct, why?  Why not {jIH muHoHwI'} or just {muHoHwI'}?  
> Wouldn't those be the same thing?

Will wrote:
>Both of those terms are gibberish. You can't use a prefix on a nominalized 
verb 
>with {-wI'}.

I was trying to make the verb agree with what I perceived as its object, 
which in reality is its possessor, if I understand correctly.

Will wrote:
>[..]when I see people I know who are 
>definitely skilled enough to do impressive things with the language become 
>misled enough to promote a really strange idea with seeming authority, I 
feel a 
>strong urge to leap in and kill the argument before less experienced people 
>become confused by the misleading arguments presented by those these new >
people 
>trust to present the truths of the language.

It is abundantly clear to me, at least, that the issue of using prefixes with 
-wI' is quite controversial, even if I don't understand every nuance of both 
arguments.  I know that there's only one person who can make a statement 
about Klingon grammar with absolute authority, and that he isn't on this list.

FWIW, I see no cause to "kill" any debate, short of Dr. Okrand specifically 
telling us what's what....

Just my opinion.

-Sengval

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