tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 09 15:38:59 1997

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RE: Krankor's article

January 09, 1997 12:27 AM, jatlh ter'eS:

> I'm confused by one section of Captain Krankor's article in the latest
> HolQeD.  He writes {mulegh SuvwI'pu'vo' cha'}, meaning 'two of the warriors
> see me'.
[...]
> But I don't follow the use of {-vo'}.  In TKD, p. 28, it says "This suffix
> is similar to {-Daq} but is used only when action is in a direction away
> from the noun suffixed with {-vo'}."  It seems to me that this list has
> always held to the idea that {-vo'} is used only to express motion.  Has
> this changed?  The Captain is clearly using {-vo'} as some kind of partitive
> suffix ('a subset out of a fuller set'), but I thought the absence of such a
> suffix was the whole reason for d'Armond's original article and Krankor's
> response.  So, what gives?  How do the pabpo'wI'pu' like this idea?

I was really enjoying Krankor's article until I reached this point.  I have 
the same problem with it that you did.  We have never seen nouns with Type 5 
suffixes modifying other nouns.  Indeed, despite Krankor's assertion that his 
{-vo'} trick is completely grammatical, it is not.  TKD p. 31 says, "When the 
noun-noun construction is used, only the second noun can take syntactic 
suffixes (Type 5)."  This would appear to invalidate this trick.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97026.5

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