tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 20 23:50:18 2002
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Re: RE: QeD De'wI' ngermey
On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, David Trimboli wrote:
> From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
> > mu'vetlh vIjatlhtaHvIS HughwIj 'oy' law' vItlhutlhtaHvIS jatwIj 'oy' puS!
>
> Oh boy. You've followed the pattern of the known-to-be-ungrammatical
> /QamvIS Hegh QaQ law' torvIS Hegh QaQ puS/. It's not only ungrammatical
> because of the lack of /-taH/s. It's also got subordinate clauses modifying
> NOUNS, not attached to sentences.
My copy of the Grammarian's Desk says it's legal, and quotes the line from
ST6 about "It's better to die on one's feet than to live on one's
knees"...
> You can't say */QamtaHvIS Hegh/ for "death while standing." /-vIS/ words
> modify verbs, not nouns. Likewise, you can't say */mu'vetlh vIjatlhtaHvIS
> HughwIj/ for "my throat while speaking that word." And you can't say that
> the subordinate clause is modifying the entire sentence, because you've also
> got */vItlhutlhtaHvIS jatwIj/ "my tongue while I am drinking it." Neither
> of these works.
Ah, but the clauses aren't modifying the nouns. would not { QamtaHvIS
Hegh ghaH } be legal for "He died while standing", since { Hegh } is also
a verb? Now if you removed the optional { ghaH } you get exactly what you
said is not possible...
> (/'oy'/ may also be a bad choice, since its definition doesn't make it clear
> whether it's an action, a quality, or both. Can you talk about an /'uS
> 'oy'/ "sore leg"? Or does it have to be an /'oy'bogh 'uS/ "leg which
> aches"?)
Most of the examples I've seen have used { QaQ }, and although it doesn't
suffer from having a similar noun form, could you not also then have { 'uS
QaQ } "good leg" and { QaQbogh 'uS } "leg which is good"?
I can see the confusion with the fact that { 'oy' } can be a noun as well
as a verb, but given the construction, isn't the verb form implied? Given
that, the { vIjatlhtaHvIS } isn't modifying a noun, it's a clause
modifying the sentence...
Was Krankor overturned at some point? (Can we look forward to a second
volume? :)
...Paul
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