tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 29 16:01:48 2004

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RE: TKD phrase: {-meH} clause

d'Armond Speers, Ph.D. ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

[email protected] wrote:
> 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.

I wasn't talking about order; whether it's <N-meH N> V or <N-meH> N V, the
order is the same.  My point was that in this case, {Duj} is not the subject
of {HIvmeH}, but rather the object of {So'}.  If it were the subject of
{HIvmeH}, then the sentence would mean "one cloaks an
in-order-to-attack-ship," (or, "one cloaks an attack-ship", or "an attack
ship is cloaked") which isn't what the translation suggests.  {Duj} is not
the subject of {HIvmeH} here.

> 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/.

How about {Huch}?  That is, an elided {'oH} pronoun that is coreferent with
{Huch}, which I interpret as the object of the verb {neH}.

Whether {Huch} (conceptually) is the subject of {DIl} in this case is not
really important to me; I can accept it as an unstated subject, just like
{vutmeH 'un} and so on.

> 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.

We have other examples, such as {ghojmeH taj}.  I do follow your reasoning,
but examples like {ghojmeH taj} suggest that the {-meH} clause can have no
prefix.  Otherwise, I'd expect this to be {qaghojmeH taj} or something.
{taj} isn't the subject of {ghojmeH}, it's the noun that the purpose clause
is modifying.

> 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.

Because of {-chuq}, the subject of the verb {ja'} must be plural, so it
cannot be {jaghla'} or some other third person (singular).  The object of
the verb {neH} is the entire clause {ja'chuqmeH rojHom}.  The subject of
{ja'chuqmeH} is (I would suggest) {chaH} (elided), and the purpose clause
{ja'chuqmeH} is modifying the noun {rojHom}.

...[canon examples removed for brevity]...

There are several vocabulary items that counter this:

pe'meH taj
qa'meH vIttlhegh
vutmeH 'un

And a couple of other places from the SkyBox cards:

S32: {'oynaQ}
{SuvwI' qa' patlh veb chavlaHmeH tlhIngan lo'chu' chaH.}

Since the subject of {lo'} is {chaH}, we would expect {luchavlaHmeH} here.

S15: {tlhIngan may'Duj, qItI'nga}
{tera' vatlh DISpoH cha'maH loS bong QongmeH qItI'nga Duj tI'ang ghompu'
DIvI' 'ejDo' 'enterpray'.}
"A sleeper ship of this class, the T'Ong, was encountered in the 24th
century th the U.S.S. Enterprise."

True, if this is {QongmeH [beq]} or something the (lack of a) prefix doesn't
tell us anything, but this seems to me to be the same thing as {vutmeH 'un};
a "cooking pot", a "sleeper ship," without explicit reference to who is
cooking or who is sleeping.  The context of the sentence will make this
clear.

Look, I don't want to get into a fight over whether this is {DIlmeH Huch} or
just {DIlmeH}.  I was simply pointing out that there is at least ONE person
out here who prefers the simpler {<Dochvetlh DIlmeH> Huch 'ar DaneH}
interpretation.  Since the {<Dochvetlh DIlmeH Huch> 'ar DaneH} view was
being advanced as the only possibly correct view, I wanted to point out that
I disagree.

> ...Paul

--Holtej

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