tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 15 20:25:08 1997

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Re: Ha'DIbaHmey



[email protected] on behalf of Qov wrote:
> At 09:40 PM 9/14/97 -0700, Qermaq wrote:
> >Excellent point. Just because question words tend to fall into positions
> >which mirror their 'replaced' counterparts doesn't mean that we can replace
> >any noun with nuq, or any name with 'Iv. 
> 
> I believe TKD 6.4 says we can.

Again, not really.  It says

v----------v
For {'Iv} "who?" and {nuq} "what?" the question word fits into the sentence in 
the position that would be occupied by the answer.

yaS legh 'Iv
Who sees the officer?

'Iv legh yaS
Whom does the officer see?

In the first question, it is the subject which is being asked about, so {'Iv} 
"who?" goes in the subject position, following the verb {legh} "he/she sees 
him/her."  In the second case, the object is being questioned, so the question 
word goes in the object position, before the verb.

Similarly with {nuq} "what?"
^-----------^

This says nothing about replacing nouns, it talks about replacing subjects or 
objects.  In Marc Okrand's forum post, it says nothing about replacing 
pronouns (or nouns), but rather of the question word working in a "parallel" 
fashion to the pronoun.

Finally, I don't believe there's a single piece of evidence to show that {nuq} 
and {'Iv} can work in possessive constructions.

> >Could I say My 'what' is burning? as meQtaH nuqwI'???? I don't think
> >so at all.
> 
> No, because {-wI'} is a noun suffix and {nuq} is of the chuvmey.  You'd have
> to say {... nuq vIghajbogh}.

I agree with your recasting, but not the reasons that you recast it.

-- 
SuStel
qoH vuvbe' SuStel
Stardate 97708.8



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