tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 10 11:17:25 1995

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Re: Compound Nouns and N1-N2 (again)

I wrote:
> 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".

Holtej wrote:
>I don't see any basis for us to interpret compound nouns as possessives.

First, I'll interpret anything in TKD the way TKD says to interpret it.
(I will of course treat the obvious typographical errors appropriately.)
If TKD says that {mangghom} is "army", I will not insist that it really
means "soldier's group" (though I don't see that much of a distinction
in this case).  {'Iwghargh} "bloodworm" doesn't necessarily have to mean
"blood's worm" either.  These "legitimate" compound nouns ARE found in
the dictionary, and DO have specifically defined meanings, so I don't
need to look further in order to interpret them.  So I do *not* intend
to force the possessive interpretation on "legitimate compound nouns."

>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.

My main point is that I don't think *WE* can create a compound noun with
a meaning of anything except "N2 of the N1".  Whether TKD 3.4 is talking
about compound nouns or not, it's the only place I see that tells us HOW
to put nouns together.  It tells us how to translate the results of that
process, and it tells us to translate it as possessive.  It specifically
does NOT tell us how to make compound nouns.  (Neither does TKD 3.2.1.)

>...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.

I do recognize the difference between a "wordgroup" and a "word's group",
and I accept that {mu'ghom} is a compound that does not have a possessive
meaning.  But just as we do not have instructions for turning a noun into
an adverb, I don't find any instructions for making a compound noun.  All
I see is a way to combine nouns "in the manner of a compound noun" to get
a noun-noun construction with a possessive translation.

TKD 3.4 says a "legitimate compound noun" would be found in a dictionary.
I hope we all agree that adding words to the dictionary is not permitted
without true canon support (basically, only Okrand can do it).  We can't
make a "legitimate compound noun" ourselves; all we can do is follow the
noun-noun pattern to make a possessive construction.

>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.

I simply do not see the ability to create compound nouns given in TKD.
Perhaps the creation of new compound nouns is a "warranted" extension,
but I still think it's an extension.

-- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj

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