tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 29 14:59:11 2004

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RE: TKD phrase: {-meH} clause

...Paul ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004, d'Armond Speers, Ph.D. wrote:
> Supporting canon:
>
> TKW p. 182
> {HIvmeH Duj So'lu'}
> A ship cloaks in order to attack.
>
> This is "one cloaks a ship in order to attack," not "one cloaks an
> in-order-to-attack-ship."  If it were the latter, I'd expect the translation
> to be something more like "The attack ship is cloaked."  This doesn't suffer
> from the prefix problem above, but it shows that N-meH N V can be parsed as
> <N-meH> N V rather than <N-meH N> V.

I think the question is not so much order, as it is the subject of the
clause itself.  In the canon example you give, the subject of the verb
/HIv/ is (in my mind) "the ship".  This is fine, because if the ship is
the subject, the verb would take no prefix anyway.

However, the example in question:

Dochvetlh DIlmeH Huch 'ar DaneH

I would ask, what's the subject of the verb /DIl/?  It seems like the
subject is likely to either be "I" (/Dochvetlh vIDIl vIneH/ "I want to pay
for that"), or perhaps it should be "anyone" (/Dochvetlh DIllu'/ "One pays
for that")  In either of these cases, it seems like perhaps /DIlmeH/
should then either be /vIDIlmeH/ or /DIllu'meH/.

Without the prefix, it reads to me (under scrutiny) more like "For
he/she/it/them to pay for that, how much money do you want?"  But I would
think the intent would really be "For *me* to pay for that, how much do
you want?" which would require the /vI-/ prefix on /DIl/.

There was an idea put forth (sorry sap I am, I deleted the earlier emails)
about that if the purpose clause is modifying a noun, it takes no prefix
or /-lu'/, but I'm not sure I buy that.  There is limited canon in TKD
(one of the three examples I found was the one in question):

TKD:
ja'chuqmeH rojHom neH jaghla'  -- No prefix on /ja'chuq/, but then, the
subject of the phrase is likely /jaghla'/, or a third person.

jagh luHoHmeH (jagh) lunejtaH  -- Has a prefix!

Dochvetlh DIlmeH Huch 'ar DaneH  -- This is the phrase in question.

The only other ready source of /-meH/ phrases I know of is TKW, and the
clauses pretty consistently either use prefixes, the /-lu'/ suffix, or
have neither, but pretty apparently indicate a third person subject
anyway:

Obvious third person subjects:
SuvmeH 'ej charghmeH bogh tlhInganpu'
tlhIngan ngoQmey chavmeH HoH tlhInganpu'
HIvmeH Duj So'lu'
noH QapmeH wo' Qaw'lu'chugh yay chavbe'lu' 'ej wo' choqmeH may'
   DoHlu'chugh lujebe'lu'  <-- Note that the base verbs use /-lu'/, so
                               it seems fitting the subject of the /-meH/
                               verbs would be third person.

Specific prefix/suffix:
qa' wIje'meH maSuv
mataHmeH maSachnIS
yIn DayajmeH 'oy' yISIQ
Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam   <-- Note use of /-lu'/ rather than a prefix
bIQapqu'meH tar DaSop 'e' DatIvnIS
HIq DaSammeH tach yI'el
maQapmeH maHIv

Oddball:
tlhutlhmeH HIq ngeb qaq law' bIQ qaq puS

So out of all this canon, only *two* lines show oddball behaviors, and in
fact, the majority of the canon uses specific prefixes/suffixes.  Given
that we have specifically the suffix of /-lu'/ to indicate an "indefinite
subject", I'm inclined to believe the two oddball phrases are in error.
Adding /-lu'/ to those two phrases makes things much clearer:

Dochvetlh DIllu'meH Huch 'ar DaneH
"How much money do you want, for one to buy that?"

tlhutlhlu'meH HIq ngeb qaq law' bIQ qaq puS
"For one to drink, fake ale is preferable to water."

...Paul

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