tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 14 12:27:22 1996
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Re: Time (Out)
On Thu, 14 Mar 1996, Jeremy Cowan wrote:
> I'm following the (oft-repeated) discussion of "Question Words as Verbs"
> with interest. But to branch off on a different topic, I just realized
> something. Can we say 'Iv Duj and count it as a noun-noun construction?
> TKD sec 6.4 says, "The question word fits into the sentence in the
> position that would be occupied by the answer."
>
> 'Iv Duj wIpuv Whose ship are we going to fly?
Seems a natural placement of /'Iv/ given the grammar; I'm not too
comfortable with the use of /puv/ like this, though. Do we have any
canon with /puv/? It just feels intransitive.
> As far as I know, this fits all grammar rules that we know of. The only
> thing that worries me is the later sentence in 6.4 that says, "Both 'Iv
> and nuq are TREATED as nouns as far as the pronominal prefixes are
> concerned," (emphasis added) possibly indicating that because they aren't
> nouns the prefixes shouldn't be used in a noun-noun construction.
All it seems to say to me is that the verb sees them as nouns, and
3rd-person nouns at that. In a noun-noun, the verb should agree with
whatever person/number the whole noun-noun is, again, 3rd person. I don't
think it's a problem.
> Although, I do have to say, I have no idea what nuq Duj would mean.
> Certainly not "which ship".
It's be something like "what's ship". But that's not helpful. The
English "the ship of what" is wildly ambiguous as to how 'of' is
interpreted. The question can be answered with so many different types
of things: a color, a material, a location, an organization, etc. (ship
of green, ship of metal, ship of the Delta quadrant, ship of the
founders, etc.). It brings us back to the old question of how to define
"possession" in regards to the noun-noun construction. And without
evidence or decree, we can't really know.
> What do you guys think?
>
> janSIy
--Holtej