tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 26 16:40:06 2009

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Re: The topic marker -'e'

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

Steven Lytle wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 6:56 PM, David Trimboli <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> 
>> Steven Lytle wrote:
>>> I think part of the problem in following this conversation is
>>> that in
>> X-vaD
>>> Y, the X-vaD is never (supposed to be) a noun-noun construction,
>>> yet it's being called this over and over.
>> The question is whether {X-vaD Y} is a single noun phrase. If it
>> is, it would have to be a noun-noun construction, because there is
>> no other kind of noun phrase it could be. But it *can't* be a
>> noun-noun construction, because {-vaD} is not allowed on the first
>> noun. So is it really a noun phrase at all?
>> 
>> X-vaD Y Verb
>> 
>> Is X the beneficiary of Y or the beneficiary of Verb? TKD says it's
>> the beneficiary of Verb.
> 
> Exactly. But it's still being *called* a noun-noun construction, and
> it shouldn't be, because it isn't.

I agree. But the problem has been that when I say it's an illegal 
noun-noun construction, Christopher has been focusing on the "noun-noun 
construction" part and not the "illegal" part. I think he's thinking 
that the phrase itself is a perfectly valid noun phrase, but can't be 
called a noun-noun construction because of the {-vaD} on the first noun. 
This is incorrect: it's NOT a valid noun phrase, BECAUSE it would be an 
illegal noun-noun construction, so it simply can't be used. These nouns 
might appear next to each other if each is related to the VERB and not 
to each other, but he's been using sentences without main verbs, so 
there's no verb to relate the nouns to.

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

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