tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 31 22:23:00 1997

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Re: chay'



[email protected] on behalf of Neal Schermerhorn wrote:
> Other than chay' and qatlh, all the question words assume the syntactical 
> position of what would be the answer to the question.

Not so with {'ar}.

> qatlh is easy, it asks What is the reason? What -mo' noun or verb would 
> explain the occurrence of the event in the question?

Well, when considering {-mo'}, {qatlh} IS in the same syntactic position.

> chay' seems easy too - it seems to ask for either an adverbial or an 
> explanation of the method used by the participants in the question's 
> statement.

These are actually two entirely different meanings, as you later point out.  
In the case of the adverbial, {chay'} is also in exactly the position for an 
adverbial.

In fact, this very location-substitution is the ONLY thing I find believable 
about the whole question-as-object problem.

> chay' jura' = What are your orders?/How do you command us? 
> 
> This asks not for an adverbial (chIch jura', taHqeq!) nor for an explanation 

> of the method (DuH vIwIv 'ej Sajatlh, yIpab!) but for what exactly? It is 
> almost a REQUEST for the addressee to perform the sentence, almost like a 
> command (ghora'neS). Or perhaps we are asking To what end do you command us? 

> Or How do you plan to command us? This is probably an idiomatic usage for
> this 
> situation only. 'e' vItulqu'!

Actually, I believe that {ra'} is a verb of saying, and that the object is 
really the person or persons being commanded.  That would mean that the orders 
themselves are NOT the object.  This would explain exactly why it's {chay' 
jura'} and not {nuq jura'} or {maHvaD nuq Dara'}.

It makes one wonder: would you say {chay' juja'} for "What did you tell us?"  
More literally, "How did you tell us?"  I find this quite believable.  {chay' 
jutlhob} would also work.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97582.7


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