tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 05 19:19:43 1998
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Re: KLBC verb question
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC verb question
- Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 12:05:23 -0500
From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
>: <tu'lum ghormeH loDHom, ghanjaq lo'>.
>
> "In order for the boy to break the teacup, he used a club."
>
>While grammatically correct, this still feels a bit odd to me. In a short
>sentence like this, I would have put the subject at the end:
>
> tu'lum ghormeH, ghanjaq lo' loDHom.
> "In order to break the teacup, the boy used a club."
I suggest that your feeling is based on English bias. As stated twice in
TKD section 6.2., "It is possible, however, to use pronouns rather than
nouns in the second of the joined sentences," "If the context is clear, even
the pronoun may be left out," and regarding purpose clauses, "Furthermore,
just as in compound sentences, the second of two identical nouns may be
replaced by a pronoun or, if the context is clear, left out altogether."
The examples in the book show this happening. It certainly seems that one
should place a noun in the earliest part of a sentence that it fits.
tu'lum ghormeH loDHom, ghanjaq lo' loDHom.
tu'lum ghormeH loDHom, ghanjaq lo' ghaH.
tu'lum ghormeH loDHom, ghanjaq lo'.
>Note that punctuation helps the reader, though it's not required. With a
>longer sentence, though, I would certainly put the subject after the first
>verb
>as pagh suggests, lest the reader lose track of it.
I don't see that sentence length has anything to do with it.
>Another very common
>variation - at least here on the mailing list - is the {X lo'taHvIS} trick:
>
> ghanjaq lo'taHvIS, tu'lum ghor loDHom.
> "While using a club, the boy broke the teacup."
ghanjaq lo'taHvIS loDHom, tu'lum ghor loDHom.
ghanjaq lo'taHvIS loDHom, tu'lum ghor ghaH.
ghanjaq lo'taHvIS loDHom, tu'lum ghor.
SuStel
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