tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 25 16:07:03 2009

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: The topic marker -'e'

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

Christopher Doty wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 15:08, David Trimboli <[email protected]> wrote:
>> So "being a battle" {may' 'oH} is done "for tribbles" {yIHvaD}. The
>> intended recipients of "being a battle" are tribbles. I used "benefit"
>> in the sense of receiving an action, not necessarily that good would
>> accrue to the tribbles. In other words, "beneficiary of the action."
> 
> Ah, okay, I thought you actually meant "benefits from."
> 
>> If by "it is battle for tribbles" you mean that only tribbles are low
>> enough to bother fighting it, then you've got to rework the sentence in
>> some way; it doesn't mean what you're trying to say. "A dishonorable
>> battle is a battle that tribbles should fight" contains no idea of
>> tribbles receiving the "action" of being a battle. The bit about the
>> tribbles only modifies the word "battle."
> 
> I'm just not getting this, and maybe it's because I'm being super
> dense, but compare
> 
> yIHvaD may' 'oH may' quvHa''e'
> 
> and
> 
> Qugh la'vaD QIn pav
> [Urgent message for Commander Kruge.] (ST3 DVD case)
> 
> These seem like an analogous construction to me; I'm not sure why the
> last one is okay and the the first is not....  (Sorry, not trying to
> be difficult, just confused..)

I don't think I've ever seen that example.

As I mentioned before, there are several examples of noun–noun 
constructions with {-vaD} on the first noun. I believe they all occur in 
isolated noun phrases (that is, not in verbal clauses). The rules tell 
us this is not allowed, but there they are. They *are* noun-nouns.

The BoP poster, plus this one, have enough of them that I can't complain 
*too* strongly if someone uses them, but as you now see, they will be 
really ambiguous if you try to use them: are they modifying the object 
or the verb? Personally, I will not use them without confirmation from 
Okrand.

(I am also convinced that Okrand simply forgot that the rules in TKD 
forbid this sort of thing. I really hate it when errors make Klingon 
work more like English.)

-- 
SuStel
tlhIngan Hol MUSH
http://trimboli.name/mush

Back to archive top level