tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 17 06:20:16 1994
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Re: 'mean'
- From: Captain Krankor <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: 'mean'
- Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 17:21:34 -0700
>On Feb 16, 1:43pm, marqem wrote and charghwI' opinionates in response:
>> Subject: 'mean'
>>
>> For some uses of the English verb "to mean" we can use jatlhlu':
>> 1. ghot nuv jatlhlu'
>> literally, 'one says nuv [as] ghot'.
>
> Interesting. I've never seen this construction before. Could you point
>it out to me in canon? I have been tempted to try it myself, but I could not
>justify the two nouns without a conjuction. It looks more like a noun-noun
>conjuction, in which case it becomes "The {ghot}'s {nuv} is spoken." I don't
>think that is your intent.
I like the basic approach alot. I think, though, that I would do it
as: "ghot"vaD "nuv" jatlhlu'. As was brought up in a later post,
the punctuation helps. I'm going to start using jatlhlu' like this.
>> Compare such sentences as
>> 2. Qanqor Hodma' ponglu'
>> literally, 'one calls our captain Krankor', which I believe is an
>> accepted structure. Sentence 1 is appropriate where we would say
>> in English "nuv means ghot". The appropriateness of the
>> construction is even more evident when discussing translation:
> Same problem. "Our captain of Krankor is called." I have not really
>resolved this one very well yet.
This one surfaces from time to time. Yeah, you *could* interpret it
that way, but the intended parse is indeed legal. I refer you to
6.1, p 60: "Any noun indicating something other than subject or
object comes first, before the object noun. Such nouns *usually*
end in a Type 5 noun suffix..." (emphasis added). Usually, but not
always. Here the name, Qanqor, is this third noun. This is the
unusual case where it really doesn't seem to need any kind of type 5
suffix. It's not a locative, or an indirect object, or anything
like that, it's just another noun besides the subject and object,
which the above-quoted rule covers.
--Krankor