tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 11 07:31:59 1996

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Re: KLBC: Q about -lu'



>Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 12:33:02 -0800
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>

>I've seen two good responses to this one, but neither one
>addressed the KLBC-centric need to explain why the original
>grammar here is illegal:

>> >2. (even less likely) can it be used to express general
>> >rules of behaviour as in
>> >.. vaj DungDaq pumlu' 'e' vInIDbe'lu'
>> >("thus one doesn't try to fall upward", really meaning
>> >"thus one SHOULD not try to fall upward")

>Think for a minute. You can't use {-lu'} on the second verb in
>a Sentence As Object construction. It creates grammatical
>headaches relating to the role reversal of subject and object,
>thereby placing {'e'} in the subject role (by some
>interpretations).

I don't see that at all.  "-lu'" specifies that the *SUBJECT* of the
sentence is unspecified.  It does not affect the object.  Indeed, the
object must remain specific, or else there's nothing specific in the
sentence.  "paq tu'lu'": the book is the *object* and it's quite
well-determined (of course, you could explicitly say "vay'": there's
something there.)  "'e'" is simply the object of the -lu' clause, with an
unspecified subject.  There's no role-reversal, except in the functioning
of the prefixes, which is just an inexplicable oddity, but whose
functioning is well-understood, and is not in any way hampered by having
the object be "'e'".

>Regardless of the specifics of the fallout of such a
>construction, Okrnad foresaw the problem and specifically
>created {net} for any place you'd be tempted to use {'e' Xlu'}.
>Others gave you examples of use of {net} but did not explicitly
>tell you that {'e' Xlu'} is illegal. It is.

I have no evidence or logic that "'e' Xlu'" is illegal, aside from simply
knowing that "net X" is preferred.  I don't think that's absolute evidence
to say it's *wrong*, just less than ideal.  It makes logical and
grammatical sense; it may be wrong only because "net X" overshadows it.

~mark


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