tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 14 08:14:29 1994

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Re: KLBC: Hoghvam



Hu'tegh! nuq ja' Will Martin jay'?

Quoting HoD QanQor from the end of March (I'm clearing up my Mail backlog)

=> Second, "Hol maja'chuq" is certainly correct Klingon for "We discuss
=> [a,the] language".  While it may *look* like the wrong prefix, it is
=> not.  Hol is NOT the object here, it is one of those other nouns
=> "indicating something other than subject or object", which go
=> "first, before the object noun", as per 6.1, page 60.  While such
=> nouns usually take a type 5 noun suffix, they are not required to.
=> This sentence fits that case.  There simply is no object per se,
=> having been precluded by the -chuq suffix.

Will couldn't accept this analysis, and neither can I. The only time where
a type 5 suffix is known to be not used is -Daq with pa', naDev, and Dat,
and (implicitly) temporal nouns, which don't have a type 5 suffix to take
anyway. Furthermore, the only suffixes that could possibly assign a case role 
to Hol here are -mo' (which is iffy, and whyever elide the -mo'?) and -'e'.

Qanqor is opening up an *interesting* can of worms here. He's sort of
implying that Hol'e', pabDaj wIqel (as for the language, we're discussing
its grammar) is legal. (If Hol here is not an object, and coud take a type 5
suffix, and the suffix is -'e', this follows.) It's probably what Okrand 
*intended*, because that's how real languages' topicalisers actually get 
used (see the Japanese *wa*, for example) --- but it's not what Okrand has 
actually done; he's only used it as an emphatic after grammatical subjects 
and objects.

Qanqor, I think it'd be interesting if you explored this in one of your
grammar columns in HolQeD.

=     I completely agree that {Hol wIja'chuq} is WAAAAY ugly. There is simply
=no grammatical rule by which that prefix and suffix can happen simultaneously
=on the same word. I fall back to my usual compulsive urge to recast:
=                    maja'chuqmeH Hol wIlo'

Though I don't find Hol wIja'chuq *that* ugly, the recasting is excellent.
As you'll have noticed, I myself would just say [maja'chuqtaHvIS] Hol wIqel.

Nick.



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