tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 06 19:59:03 2000
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Re: KLBC : A somewhat advanced translation...
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: KLBC : A somewhat advanced translation...
- Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 22:58:43 EST
[email protected] writes:
> juDmoS the Inquisitive inquired:
>
> : When the verb qIj (be black) is used
adjectively
>
> : here, the locative suffix -Daq is attached to the adjective, rather than
> the
> : noun. Why exactly is this ? It would seem to be more correct to say they
> are
> : *in* the *fleet*, which just happens to be *black*... but the locative
is
> : attached to the *black* and not the *fleet* It's a noun suffix attached
> to a
> : verb being used adjectively. [snip] Why isn't it 'ejyo'Daq qIj ?
[...]
> If you want chapter and verse for the rule pagh refers to, see TKD section
> 4.4 "Adjectives" (p.50):
>
> If a Type 5 noun suffix is used (section 3.3.5), it follows the
> verb, which, when used to modify the noun in this way, can have
> no other suffix except the rover {-qu'} 'emphatic'. the Type 5
> noun suffix follows {-qu'}.
>
> {veng tInDaq} "in the big city"
> {veng tInqu'Daq} "in the very big city"
>
> A better question would be *why* did Okrand create this rule? Did he have
> some other language in mind, perhaps one of the California Amerindian
> languages he studied in graduate school? Did he just want to add a piece
> of unusual, or unpredictable, syntax to what is still a very regular,
> predictable grammar - perhaps overly regular, like too many artificial
> languages. Or was he just felling a bit contrary that day?
>
My personal opinion is that, to the Klingon mind, there is no real distinction
between the grammar of a complex word made from a noun + adjective and
a noun + adjective phrase. That is, the Klingons see a word like {bIQtIq}
'river' as being sematically the same as {bIQ tIq} 'long water'; the only
difference
would be that long usage recognizes the fomer as a bound expression
representing something different that 'long water'. This being the case,
they put Type 5 noun suffixes at the end of the meaning unit of noun +
adjective.
It would seem unnatural to them to separate them.
-- ter'eS
http://www.geocities.com/~teresh_2000