tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 07 20:20:27 1994
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Noun-Noun Construction
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Noun-Noun Construction
- Date: Tue, 8 Mar 94 09:18:29 EST
On Mar 8, 1:42am, [email protected] wrote:
> Subject: Re: Noun-Noun Construction
>
> > Certainly, verbs like {QuchHa'}, {lo'laH}, {lo'laHbe'}, {jubbe'}, and
> > I FOUND IT {HeghmoH} should all be acceptable in use as >adjectives, so
> > long as there is no Type 5 noun suffix involved. Do I hear the whistle of
> >incoming missiles? {{:)>
> >
> >charghwI'
>
> NO no no no no no no no no!!! If you use {HeghmoH} as an adjective, it's
> ambiguous. {tar HeghmoH} does NOT mean "fatal poison," it means "He/She
> causes the poison to die" which is a fatal thing to say to a Klingon.
> Unless of course you wished to complement him/her on his/her great
> tolerance to some ingested toxin.
>
> {tar tlhutlh rIntaH ghaH 'ej ghaH HeghmoHbe' 'oH
> 'oH HeghmoHqu' ghaH}
>
>
> Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
I can see that this is ambiguous if you were simply presented with a
sentence fragment. In context, it would not be so ambiguous:
tar HeghmoH tlhutlhpu' ghaH
Meanwhile, your interpretation of HeghmoH ignores the entry in the word
list in TKD. In particular, I find it interesting that {-moH} is commonly
used to change an intransitive verb into a transitive one, but in this case,
the definition in TKD has {Hegh} as intransitive and {HeghmoH} ALSO
intransitive. You are interpreting {HeghmoH} to be a synonym for {HoH}, and
while you got there through a logical use of the suffix meanings, you don't
have much of a case, since {HeghmoH} does not mean "kill". It means "be
fatal", and in the English-Klingon side, it says "fatal, be fatal", which
fits the pattern of "adjective, verb" definitions described on the clear but
surprisingly controversial passage in the word list introduction on pages
78-79.
I think there is a pretty strong case for using it adjectivally, so long
as it is used without the Type 5 noun suffix.
charghwI'