tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 09 23:36:32 1999
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RE: nom
ja' Voragh:
>Although I don't think we've ever seen a noun phrase consisting of
>ADVERBIAL + VERBwI' before, there is some slight evidence that derived
>{-wI'} nouns *may* have objects:
>
> nuja' tlhIngan wIch ja'wI'pu'
> According to Klingon legend... (SkyBox S8)
> (lit. "Klingon {wIch ja'wI'}s tell us...")
>
>Here {wIch ja'wI'} must mean something like a bard or griot ("one who tells
>myths/legends"). Note that {wIch} seems to be the object of {ja'} "tell,
>report" - here probably best translated as "relate, recite" - even though
>it has the {-wI'} suffix.
I think trying to use an adverbial-verb-wI' would result in much confusion.
I used to like the idea that {-wI'} could apply to an entire sentence, and
a noun preceding the verb could be considered the verb's object. But this
example was a major reason for my rejecting that idea, because we know the
object of {ja'} isn't the thing spoken or reported. If this example were
an object-verb-wI' usage, the verb would probably have been {jatlh}.
> wIch Dajqu' ja' tlhIngan qan.
> The old Klingon told/related a very interesting legend.
>
>If this analysis is correct, it is at least plausible that noun phrases of
>the type ADVERBIAL + VERBwI' may also show up sometime in the future.
I disagree with both your premise and your logic. There's absolutely no
reason I can see for the existence of an object-verb-wI' construction to
imply the existence of an adverbial-verb-wI' construction, and...
>Of course I'm aware that {wIch ja'wI'} can just as easily be analyzed as a
>N1 N2 noun phrase ("myth/legend teller") which blows my argument.
...there's no reason to assume object-verb-wI' anyway, since a noun-noun
interpretation works in every case the supposed O-V-wI' would apply to.
-- ghunchu'wI'