tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 28 18:39:08 1993

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Re: This 'n' That




Continuing discussion of pronouns and type 5 suffixes:

>From: Captain Krankor <[email protected]>

[...]

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Let's see, what else?  Randall Holmes asked about putting suffixes on
'e'.  This has come up before; alak, at present, the answer would seem
to be "no".  'e' is a chuvmey, not a noun, and therefore, lacking explicit
say-so, example, or at least *some* kind of evidence, we can't assume it
can take suffixes.  Usually this comes up with regard to trying to say
'e'mo'.  I agree this seems reasonable, and if I had to guess, I'd bet
that Okrand would/will ok it, but at this time, nope, can't do it.

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				--Krankor

Holmes:  It seems unavoidable to me that type 5 suffixes must be
applicable to pronouns in some way (the other types seem
inappropriate), although the forms which result may not be regular.
If to pronouns in general, then probably to 'e'.  Pronouns are already
too context-dependent for their syntactical role to be left up in the
air.  If I do this contrary to advice, I will always flag the fact...


>From: (Mark E. Shoulson) <[email protected]>

Holmes (earlier):

[...]

>   verengan vIHoHpu' 'e'vaD tajvam ghaHpu'

>   I killed the Ferengi with this knife,

>   literally "I killed the Ferengi; for that, this knife was".

[...]

mark:

I've also wondered about sufixing the "'e'" pronoun, though not for that
reason.  "For that, the knife was" seems a pretty lousy construction for
what you're trying to say (it should be "'oHpu'", first of all, and I';d
translate that as "it was this knife".  What was?)  Remember, even
considering pronouns as "to be", they're "to be" only in the sense of
*copulas*, that is, they indicate equality between two nouns, not simple
existence.

For "I killed the Ferengi with this knife", I might use "verengan vIHoHmeH,
tajvam vIlo'pu'" (In order to kill the Ferengi, I used this knife).

>			   --"Randall Holmes" mughlaw'wI'

~mark

Holmes:

You are absolutely right about the abuse of pronouns-as-verbs here.
The verb I should be using is lo', to use:

	* verengan vIHoHpu' 'e'vaD lo'lu' tajvam

This is merely to illustrate the kind of construction I discuss:  your
sentence above is very good (certainly better than mine, even if the
latter were grammatical!)

			--"Randall Holmes" mughlaw'wI'





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