tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 11 10:23:11 2009
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Questions with law'/puS
ghunchu'wI' wrote:
> On Jul 11, 2009, at 10:33 AM, Terrence Donnelly wrote:
>
>> I'm not saying you definitely can use {-'a'} on {law'/puS}, just
>> that I see no fundamental objection to it.
>
> I see SuStel and Doq both objecting fundamentally to it. I share
> their objection. In a comparative/superlative construction, {law'}
> and {puS} don't act like verbs. I just don't see them working with
> verb suffixes, especially type 9 ones.
Let's say that it's not so much a fundamental objection as a gut
feeling. The idea that you can't disprove it by pointing to a lack of
evidence is valid, but by that logic you can also say that *{-cha} might
be a perfectly valid suffix that means "spoken by a Northern Klingon."
After all, we hear that suffix all the time on TV Star Trek. That one
cannot disprove a negative is no reason to advocate the positive, even
in an "I don't object to it" kind of way.
My *hunch* is that, given the relatively large number of example
law'/puS sentences that either follow the rules laid down in TKD, or are
marked explicitly as exceptional and ungrammatical, one cannot add
{-'a'} to {law'} and {puS} to make the sentence interrogative.
It was said that there is a canonical example of a comparative sentence
using {law'be'} and {puSbe'}. What is it, and where is it found?
--
SuStel
tlhIngan Hol MUSH
http://trimboli.name/mush