tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 20 20:03:26 1994
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Re: KLBC: jItagh
charghwI'vo':
>Unfortunately, in that example, the verb "call" has two equal
>objects. The technical term for that is "apposition". The two
>nouns, "wind" and "Mariah" are in fact different words for the
>same thing.
This is not apposition. Apposition is when two nouns fill a single verb
role, as in: "I saw my brother, the doctor." In this case, the verb has only
one object role, and it is filled by both "my brother" and "the doctor."
"My brother, the doctor, came home." Etc.
With the verb {pong}, similar to the English verb "give," there are two
separate object roles assigned by the verb. "I gave my brother the car."
This is *not* apposition; there are two different roles assigned to objects
by the verb. I could add another noun phrase, and produce an apposition
construction here: "I gave my brother, the doctor, the car." Notice that
with apposition, the two noun phrases have to refer to the same thing; with
double object verbs, they don't. It'd be pretty weird to say: "I saw my
brother, the car."
With "call," it's harder to see, because both noun phrases appear to have the
same reference; but they're different. One identifies the object, and the
other identifies the name of the object. "They call the wind Mariah." [I
love Kay and the Kees!] You could stick in a noun phrase in apposition with
"the wind," such as "the breeze from the north": "They call the wind, the
breeze from the north, Mariah." See?
Just a little point of linguistic terminology there, charghwI'. {{:)
--Holtej