tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 15 19:29:44 2009

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Re: nom*i*nal*ize 2. to convert (an underlying clause) into a noun phrase

Doq ([email protected])



I like this analysis. It reaches beyond anything I've seen Okrand  
explicitly state, but your thinking is obviously a reasonable  
extension that explains a lot in Okrand's commentary that might  
otherwise be cryptic.

Doq

On Sep 14, 2009, at 1:35 PM, David Trimboli wrote:

> Terrence Donnelly wrote:
>
>> What's interesting about these is that these are different types of
>> suffixes. From MO's description, it sounded like you couldn't use a
>> naked verb plus {-ghach} because some sort of time or state was
>> implied by {-ghach} that the naked verb didn't convey, so one had to
>> use one of the "aspectual" suffixes, such as {-taH} or {-qa'}. But
>> the only aspectual suffix in the above group is {-qa'}, and the
>> others are more like modal suffixes.  So maybe the need for an
>> intervening suffix is more of a formal requirement than something
>> inherent in the meaning of {-ghach}.
>
> I look at {-ghach} as a nominalizer that creates a new word stem. TKD
> says something like (I don't have it with me), "It is not known if all
> verbs can be nouns, but verbs with suffixes can never be nouns." In
> other words, it is looking at words like {quv} and {naD} and saying  
> that
> they may be verbs that have become nouns, but the verbs {quvHa'} and
> {naDHa'} (for instance) cannot ever be considered nouns. Using {- 
> ghach}
> lets you do exactly what you could do with {quv} and {naD}, but with
> suffixes attached as well. {quv} the verb became {quv} the noun,  but
> {quvHa'} the verb cannot become **{quvHa'} the noun, so you use {- 
> ghach}
> to explicitly mark that that's what you're doing: {quvHa'ghach}.
>
> In theory, there could be a noun *{tlhutlh}, but there isn't one,  
> and we
> know this explicity from KGT. But the existence of {-ghach} still  
> allows
> you to work with the verb as if it had a noun counterpart anyway, but
> only for *new* noun stems. *{tlhutlh} is not a noun, so ** 
> {tlhutlhghach}
> is not a valid noun. It's considered marked, because **{tlhutlhghach}
> would equal *{tlhutlh}, which doesn't exist. And if it did exist, you
> wouldn't need **{tlhutlhghach}. And since {quv} and {naD} both exist  
> as
> nouns, you don't need **{quvghach} or **{naDghach}. So {-ghach} is  
> only
> used where you are adding verb suffixes to create a new word stem.
>
> -- 
> SuStel
> tlhIngan Hol MUSH
> http://trimboli.name/mush
>
>
>







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