tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 21 08:39:13 1997

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Re: "The ship in which I fled"

  ghItlh ghunchu'wI' (Subject: Re: "The ship in which I fled"):-
> Since {pa'Daq'e'} is not grammatical, this sentence does not work.

  Marian Schwartz <[email protected]> replied:-
> It has always seemed to me that {-'e'} was inappropriately made as a Type 5
> noun suffix. After all, the introductory part to the Type 5 says that to
> indicate something other than subject or object, suffixes are used.  But the
> examples for {-'e'} are for a subject, and then an object. ...

  Among the constructions which are outlawed by the suffix place rule are:-
  <pa'Daq'e'> HotlhwI' tI'bogh qor  = the room in which Kor is mending the
scanner (two NS5's) (the above type)
  <paqvamwI'> = this book of mine (two NS4's)
  qama'pu' <HoHlaHlu'> = one can kill prisoners (two VS5's)
  <lamchoHqa'> puq = the child gets dirty again (two VS3's)
  <choghItlhchughjaj> = If, as I hope, you write to me (two VS9's)
  loghSut <DatuQqangniS> = you must be willing to wear a spacesuit (two VS2's)
  This seems to come from Okrand trying to shoehorn the world of possible
meaning into too few categories. The rule against double-booking a suffix
position is a useful easy rule of thumb which excludes many combinations which
are nonsense because the suffixes contradict each other, such as DujHeyna',
paqDajmaj, ghItlhlI'pu', Hubchuchbogh, etc etc etc; but also a few usable
constructions end up in the bin along with all the veQ. It would have been as
easy to classify noun suffix -'e' as an NSR (noun suffix rover). The pairs
-laH and -lu', and -choH and -qa', were likely each made to `share a room' to
avoid having several extra verb suffix classes with one member each. In KGT
Okrand does admit that some Klingons wanting to say "one can ...", feeling
trapped by inability to say -laHlu', from time to time come out in colloquial
speech with the (so far slang and unofficial) mixed forms -luH or -la'.

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