tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 23 19:41:41 2000
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Re: Grammar Highlight Each Day (bo-)
ja' HomDoq:
>> >In order to be able to carry
>> >{-wI'} the verb has to have a 3rd person sg subject.
>>
>> I disagree. The verb should have *no* subject; the noun created by {-wI'}
>> becomes the subject, and can certainly be plural.
>>
>as my own example shows, I made a mistake w.r.t. sg/pl, but the
>verb cannot have a 1st or 2nd person subject, qar'a'?
If you wish to consider that {-wI'} fits on a verb having an overt subject,
I don't see a reason for you to limit it to third person subjects.
Assuming {luHoHwI'} is acceptable, what would be different about
{DaHoHwI'}? There doesn't seem to be a distinction in the grammatical
basis for "they who kill him" and "you who kill him".
Of course, I don't see any such grammatical basis in the first place.
>(you make the *additional* claim that it "should have *no* subject")
It's not an "additional" claim. It's an explicit *lack* of extension from
the way {-wI'} is described and used in The Klingon Dictionary.
>what did you think {luHoHwI'} means?
The only thing I can possibly interpret it as is "they who kill him", but
it gets there through the odd literal meanings of "one who (they-kill-him)"
or "(they-kill-him)er". It's a "givation" sort of thing, where it has only
one conceivable meaning, even if it sounds completely wrong.
>{HoH} can only mean one of five things (disregarding tenses in English):
>
>i) he/she/it kills
>ii) they kill
>iii) he/she/it kills him/her/it
>iv) he/she/it kills them
>v) they kill them
>
>other combinations of subject/object require prefixes different from 0
>and are thus (in my mind) not represented by {HoH}.
Huh?! Where do you get the bizarre idea that {HoH} only works with the
null prefix? The first time {HoH} appears in TKD is on page 37:
{choHoHvIp} "You are afraid to kill me" ({HoH} "kill")
Here, "kill" is undeniably represented by {HoH}, even while the combination
of subject/object is "you [do something to] me" and requires the {cho-}
prefix.
And you're (intentionally?) ignoring the meaning of the bare verb {HoH}
without a prefix. That's how it's presented in TKD, as just plain "kill"
without a subject or object mentioned.
>It may sound strange
>to you, but in order to form {vIHoH} I "replace" the 0-prefix by {vI-}
Now I'm confused. I guess you're emphasizing that you never see {HoH} as
lacking a prefix? I'm not really understanding what your point is anymore,
so I can no longer reply. Perhaps that is for the best.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh