tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 17 07:45:41 1995
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Re: More on HolQeD 4.3
According to R.B Franklin:
>
>
> On Sun, 15 Oct 1995, William H. Martin wrote:
...
> > While you are at it, does anybody have S7 so that we can
> > confirm that {'op} is supposed to be a word? Does anybody have
> > a clue as to what it might mean? I for one don't see any
> > unexpressed concepts in the English translation which could be
> > ascribed to it. It looks like it must be a noun or an adverbial
> > (or a total typographical screwup) by its placement. It is not
> > a word I've seen before.
>
> >From the English translation, my best guess is that is means "some" and
> it might be a noun.
I considered that, but the overall construction suggested the
meaning of "some" without the word {'op} being there at all.
Meanwhile, if it DOES mean "some", then it's location is a
counterexample of the best use of {Hoch} as a noun which should
follow the noun it describes. If it is a noun meaning "some",
then it should logically FOLLOW instead of preceed the noun it
modifies. In this case, it preceeds.
Since "some" is the only meaning I could presume it to have,
yet it was not located in a logical place for a word meaning
"some", it could not make any sense out of it at all,
especially since the sentence already implied the sense of
"some" without {'op} being there at all.
Any OTHER guesses?
...
> > And does
> > anyone venture a guess as to why Okrand said {chaH jojDaq}
> > instead of {jojchajDaq}? I certainly can't explain it, unless
> > Okrand is trying to give us some mysterious new grammatical
> > rule, or unless he just blew it.
>
> My best guess that spacial locations are something that can't actually be
> possessed. It also seems to follow the usage in Sec. 3.4 where it says
> you use N-N constructions to translate prepositional phrases e.g. {nagh
> DungDaq} ("above the rock"). Following the rule in Sec. 3.4, it make
> more sense to me to say {chaH jojDaq} (in the area between them, "in
> between them") rather than {jojchajDaj} (in their area between).
Interesting. Very interesting. Once again, your acute attention
to detail in TKD is remarkable. I suspect you are completely
right. I'll try to rememember this pronoun useage with
prepositional nouns for the future, though the language you
quote is ambiguous enough that I don't feel too bad for missing
it in the past. TKD speaks of nouns and possessive structures.
It does not address pronouns at all, so it could logically be
extended that the reason the noun-noun construction is used is
to imply possession, which is usually handled with pronouns as
a suffix on the possessed noun.
Still, if this is an exception to that, we have to learn that.
I certainly need to.
...
> > And how about the apparent use of an ordinal number as an
> > adverbial in S15? Either that or Okrand screwed up his word
> > order again...
>
> Nouns expressing time seem to function like adverbials. When you put
> nouns like {DaHjaj} & {wa'leS} at the beginning of the sentence, they
> express when the action described by the sentence takes place. E.g.
> {DaHjaj nom Soppu'.}
But an ordinal numer is not a noun. It is chuvmey. If anything,
it behaves like an adjectival. That's why I saw its placement
as odd unless it is newly being allowed to function as an
adverbial. I can't see any time when {wa'DIch} can function as
a noun, so speaking of nouns function adverbially doesn't seem
to apply here. This is the difference between saying, "When the
federation saw the first Klingon ships," (in which case the
word order is wrong) vs. "When the federation first saw Klingon
ships..." (in which case {wa'DIch} is being used adverbially,
which is not described in TKD unless I missed it.)
...
> And it's now confirmed that Klingon ranks come after the person's
> name as indicated in ST 5. I guess Qel, trI'qal & Qanqor now need to go
> by Qel 'aj, trI'qal HoD & Qanqor HoD.
I missed that. I need to get back to this post when I have
HolQeD 4.3 in front of me...
> > charghwI'
>
> yoDtargh
Thank you for you thoughtful response. This is exactly what I
was asking for. Together, we can make more sense of these
details.
charghwI'
--
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