tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 18 09:16:15 1994

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Re: Apposition

Hu'tegh! nuq ja' Heidi Wessman jay'?

=> Required?  Maybe not.  But it certainly should.  Insofar as nouns in
=> apposition are allowed (and I don't know of any canonical examples, though
=> I support them myself), we have to watch for confusion with N-N
=> constructions.  "Sarai be'nalvaD" sounds to me like "to Sarai's wife".  I
=> think in order to use nouns in apposition, they should (and I almost want
=> to say "have to") be in case-agreement (i.e. have the same type-5 suffix,
=> if any).  In fact, someone (Holtej?) pointed out once that adding "-'e'" to
=> both members of an apposition pair is a good way to flag it as such and not
=> a noun-noun construction, since N-N's can't have type-5 suffixes on the
=> first member.  I quite like that.
=I would have thought that 
=       Sarai be'nalDaj'e'      To Sarai, his wife
=             -or-
=       Sarai'e' be'nalDaj      To his wife, (of which being Sarai)
=If one or both are incorrect, why?

This is in fact how Guido handles apposition. Well, sort of: we'd take
Saray be'nalDaj'e' as being "his wife of Sara", and Saray'e' be'nalDaj'e' as
his wife, Sara. Innnterestingly enough, Persian N-N compounds include both
possession and apposition. But that's another story.

The point is that, to identify both nouns as complete, independent entities
(what we in the business call Noun Phrases --- NPs), we need a type 5 suffix
(which, as you'll note, follows any adjectival verbs, so is really the last
thing in an NP). If we accept that -'e' -'e' is right for apposition in
subject/object, then we presuppose that -vaD -vaD is right for indirect
object apposition. In fact, I (and I think Mark) used -vaD -vaD way before
Guido proposed -'e' -'e'.

So in answer to Kevin's original question: yes, -vaD -vaD is the way to go.

Nick.

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