tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 29 16:45:51 1994
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Re: Hoch, et al.
- From: Terry Donnelly <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Hoch, et al.
- Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 18:45:22 -0500 (CDT)
R.B Franklin <[email protected]> writes:
> In my experience, from observing different foreign languages, there is a
> large grey area between using an attributive (adjectival) construction
> and using a genitive (possesive) construction. Some languages lean
> towards a genitive construction (Spanish: vista del rio "view of the
> river"); some lean towards an adjectival construction (Russian: rechnoy
> vid "river view")
> I think all of Terry's examples of N-N constructions were valid.
> Arguably, you could say {naghtaj} (stone-knife) instead of {nagh taj}
> (knife of stone). But I think Okrand seems to use N-N genitive
> constructions more often than compound noun attributive constructions.
> Example: {tlhIngan may' taj} instead of {tlhIngan may'taj}. This leads
> me to believe that Klingon N-N constructions lean more towards a
> "possessive-attributive" meaning than just simple possession. (I hope
> I'm making myself reasonably clear because, I'm really having a hard time
> conveying this subtle concept. {{:-) )
Exactly! I would express this thought in this way: the Klingon
N-N construction indicates that the first noun modifies the
meaning of the second noun in some way, and that the possessive
N-N construction and the attributive N-N construction are both
subsets of this more general concept.
When you deal with a noun used attributively, you shouldn't get
too hung up on the English translation for the word as a noun,
but instead deal with the concept behind the noun. In the case
of {Hoch}, for example, the concept is "inclusiveness". When
{Hoch} functions as a simple noun, this concept is translated as
"everything, everyone"; when it functions attributively, the
concept is conveyed by the English adjective "all (of)".
I think the attributive use of the N-N construction is beyond
argument: it's obviously being used this way by Okrand himself
(cf. the phrase {peQ chem} in TKD). Since {Hoch} is listed in
TKD as a noun, I see no reason why it shouldn't fall under the
same rules for attributive N-N constructions as any other noun
(i.e. to express "all", {Hoch} comes before the modified noun);
and the same goes for {nuq, 'Iv, latlh}, et al.
If you claim that {Hoch} meaning "all" should come *after* the
modified noun, you have a lot of questions to answer: Why does
the N-N construction suddenly reverse its usual interpretation
when {Hoch} is involved? Where is the canonical evidence for
this? Is {Hoch} a special case, or are there other nouns used
attributively that follow this pattern? If it's special, why is
it special? If there are other nouns that follow this inverted
pattern, how can we recognize them and distinguish them from the
nouns that follow the usual N-N pattern (where attributives come
first)?
On the other hand, if you accept the attributive usage of the N-N
construction and accept that {Hoch}, et al., as simple nouns fall
into this same pattern, then there are no awkward questions to be
answered. No canonical examples of Klingon are contradicted by
this interpretation, and the logic of the grammar (as shown in
the existing canon, implicitly if not explicitly) is preserved.
> yoDtargh
Terry