tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 07 15:51:25 2000

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Re: KLBC : A somewhat advanced translation...

ghunchu'wI' already explained this well, but his explanation was 
apparently not noticed. Why move Type 5 suffixes from a noun to 
an adjective that follows it? Well, it removes a lot of 
unnecessary, highly ambiguous constructions:

vengDaq tIn ghaH.

He is big in the city.

veng tInDaq ghaH.

He is in the big city.

A noun with a Type 5 suffix is grammatically set apart from 
other nouns, unlike nouns followed by any other suffix type. It 
makes sense to lump an adjective with such a noun, marking the 
noun phrase the way you would have marked the noun.

vaHDaq Doq taj vIneH.

I want the knife in the sheath to be red.

vaH DoqDaq taj vIneH.

I want the knife in the red sheath.

charghwI'

On Thu, 6 Jan 2000 22:58:43 EST [email protected] wrote:

> [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

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