tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 10 07:51:41 1995
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Compound Nouns and N1-N2 (again)
(Sorry, folks, this is rather long)
I wrote:
> >Compound nouns and N-N are not the same thing,
> >you can't measure the acceptability of one by the acceptability of the
> >other. They have different purposes, different interpretations, and
> >different rules.
Alan Anderson responded:
> I can't accept that position without further canon support. The relevant
> sections in TKD are small, so I'll quote them in their entirety:
[quoting TKD]
> I'm willing to grant the expansion of "possessive" to "genitive" based
> on examples like {peQ chem} and {may'Duj}. I'm even willing to grant
> the existence of compound nouns that aren't noun-noun constructions.
> But I don't see any basis for *US* to be able to make a word such as
> {'Iwghargh} with a meaning of anything except "blood's worm".
I don't see any basis for us to interpret compound nouns as possessives.
I know this is your main point, and I'll get back to it below, and
hopefully show you where I think you are getting this incorrect idea.
I don't think we have any basis for interpreting /'Iwghargh/ as "blood's
worm". We are given a different grammatical tool for that, it's called
N1-N2. If you mean "blood's worm", then use a possessive construction.
> In fact,
> there isn't explicit permission for us to make *any* new compound noun.
> All we may do is put one noun after another "in the manner of a compound
> noun." We're apparently stretching the rules a bit when we run words
> together without spaces.
Nor are we expressly given permission to create N1-N2, nor to use
conjunctions, nor suffixes, etc. We're just given rules for interpreting
their use. So, if you want to conclude that we can't construct
compounds, then I will insist that you also accept that we're not allowed
to create anything, just interpret what Okrand creates and gives us.
> You said:
> >Compound nouns and N-N are not the same thing...
>
> But TKD Section 3.4 says they are: "These are the compound nouns."
> The second paragraph tells us how to translate them: "_N1's N2_."
You are reading the paragraph wrong, and this is the basis for your
error. In the first line, he is describing compound nouns, as introduced
in TKD 3.2.1; he even says so:
"These are the compound nouns (as discussed in section 3.2.1)."
Then, he starts talking about noun-nouns:
"In addition, it is possible to combine nouns in the manner of a
compound noun to produce a new construct even if it is not a legitimate
compound noun."
He then goes on to describe how this is done (with spaces), and how to
interpret them (as possessives). It is my reading of the passage that he
starts talking about compound nouns, in order to contrast them with the
new construction he's getting ready to talk about, N1-N2. He says, this
is one thing, I takled about it here. Now, this is a new thing ("a new
construct"), I'm going to talk about it now.
Then he says,
"The translation of two nouns combined in this way, say N1-N2, would
be N2 of the N1".
Okay, TKD 3.2.1 tells us how to interpret compound nouns. TKD 3.4 tells
us how noun-noun is different, and also tells us how to interpret them,
which is not the same as compound nouns. If they were the same, there'd
be only one section for them in TKD. But they're not. They're talked
about individually, they're given individual means of interpretation, and
they have different surface forms.
In TKD 3.4, part two of my article on this points out the distinction
between compounds and noun-nouns. If you are correct that they are the
same, then you must account for noun-nouns that do not appear to have a
GENITIVE interpretation (as a side note, it's a convention to use capital
letters when referring to cases; I'm not doing it for emphasis). Your
task will be hardest when the compound takes on a completely different
meaning than the noun-noun. Here are some examples:
a. mangghom
b. may'Duj
c. mu'ghom
d. mu'tlhej
e. QeDpIn
f. 'Iwghargh
g. yIntagh
h. 'ejyo'waw'
It's clear that a dictionary is a word-group, not a word's group. An
army is a soldier-group, not a soldier's group. These words are forming
a new concept, equally derived from the two parts. In a noun-noun, the
focus is on N2, just like in English if I say "John's sock" I'm talking
about a sock, which happens to belong to John. If someone else had
bought the pair of socks, then they'd be someone else's socks. If it
were a John-sock, then no matter who bought it, it'd be a John-sock, and
you could still refer to it in the context of a possessive: "my
John-sock", "Martha's John-sock". I know this sounds silly, but I find
myself having to describe the simple difference between compounds and
possessives. If you don't believe there's a difference, just in the
language-neutral case, then I can't convince you of the difference in a
language-specific case.
Consider another case. In TKD 3.4 Okrand talks about using suffixes with
noun-nouns. We can't use type 5 suffixes on the first noun, but we can
use other suffixes. If there is indeed no difference between compounds
and noun-nouns, then we'd expect constructions like:
* 'Iwvamghargh
* mangvamghom
* mu'meytlhej
(Asterisks mean I'm claiming they're unacceptable). We know that the
first noun of a noun-noun can take suffixes like these; although TKD
doesn't explicitly say so, it's my belief that the same rule does not
apply in the case of compounds. It doesn't make sense to talk about a
bloodworm from specific blood; a bloodworm is just a type of worm, we
have no idea what meaning "blood" may have historically contributed to
the derivation of this word.
Let's talk about a more clear example, /mangghom/. If I want to talk
about the army of a specific solder, I'd say /mangvam mangghom/, not
*/mangvamghom/. By your position, we must accept both. I cannot accept
this.
> Though you are both learned and skilled in the Klingon language,
> I will take TKD's word over yours.
I am not proposing anything other than what is in TKD. In fact, I'm
fighting to preserve what is given in TKD, rather than allowing
unwarranted extensions.
> -- ghunchu'wI'
--Holtej