tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 15 11:08:45 2000
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: Type 5 noun suffixes (was Re: Deixis and direction)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Anderson [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 11:24 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Type 5 noun suffixes (was Re: Deixis and direction)
>
>
> ja' HomDoq:
> >...Maybe one reason why only rovers are allowed on attributive
> >verbs is that they (the attributive verbs) occupy a "suffix-slot" 4.5
> >
> >(I don't really believe that, but I also don't think it is that
> >contrived either)
It is a most interesting idea. On a very abstract level, I do believe that
attributive (adjectival) verbs modify the meaning of a noun, much as a
suffix does, though with a bit more versatility simply because there are
more of these verbs than there are suffixes. As such, it makes sense that if
you want to modify the meaning of such an adjectival verb, you could only
use a verb suffix that can modify another suffix. The problem here is that
you are saying that the adjectival verb is acting like a NOUN suffix, and
then using this argument to explain why only VERBAL roving suffixes apply.
Meanwhile, if you treat the adjectival verb as a noun suffix, it does
explain why Type 5 noun suffixes would follow the adjectival verb instead of
the noun, if you considered the verb to be a Type 4+ noun suffix in the way
that {-Ha'} is a Type 1- suffix or that {-Qo'} is a Type 8+ suffix.
> I almost like that idea a lot. It would fit much nicer if the rovers
> weren't *verb* suffixes, however.
Exactly.
> If we look at things from a related but slightly different angle, the Type
> 5 noun suffixes *shouldn't* be seen as essentially like other suffixes.
> Perhaps they are remnants of an older form of the language in which they
> were separate words, the way {Daq} is. That would help explain why they
> follow adjectival verbs.
Another interesting idea.
> There is already a class of nouns that acts this
> way; we usually call them "time stamps". {ben} and {leS} just
> sit there in
> the front of a sentence, and their meaning is understood because
> we've been
> told how they work. An archaic {vo'} "from-ness" could have
> worked in much
> the same way.
>
> [Hmm. Can anyone think of a simple sentence with {ben} as the subject?]
SuStel has already answered this challenge, but I believe that any of the
inherantly Time Stamp nouns can be used like normal nouns, though it doesn't
happen very often:
wa'leS wa'Hu' je vIqelDI' reH wa'leS vImaStaH. qaqbej wa'leS.
There are enough grammatical clues here to make it clear that I'm not using
these words as time stamps, though the first sentence remains slightly
ambiguous and the wrong interpretation would naturally occur as you started
the sentence.
wa'leS
Tomorrow is the time stamp.
wa'leS wa'Hu'
What? Two time stamps? Well maybe. What is going on here?
wa'leS wa'Hu' je
Okay. Maybe something happened yesterday and will happen tomorrow. They are
being handled more explicitly as nouns than usual, but they are still
probably time stamps.
wa'leS wa'Hu' je vIqelDI'
Likely, {wa'leS and wa'Hu'} are the direct object of {vIqel}. There could be
an implicit third person direct object other than these two time-stamp
nouns, but unless context dictates that this is true, odds are they are the
direct object of {qel}.
> I agree with SuStel's assessment that there's no explicit grammatical rule
> preventing Type 5 suffixes from appearing on nouns acting as subjects, and
> the fact that we never see them there is because they just don't
> make sense that way.
Has it occurred to you yet that since languages are typically formed by
initial use of symbols without grammar, then an increase in complexity by
combining symbols in idiomatic ways that eventually become conventionalized
by a drive for consistency that eventually forms patterns and that observing
these patterns, one makes up the rules that form the grammar? If you have a
pattern of usage as globally consistent as "Type 5 augmented nouns never
make sense as subject," then that, in itself, is as valid a rule of grammar
as any other.
Add that to Okrand's words in TKD: "These suffixes indicate something about
the function of the noun in the sentence... Subjects and objects in Klingon
are likewise indicated by word order... Similarly, in Klingon, nouns which
indicate something other than subject or object usually must have some
special indication of exactly what that function is... this is accomplished
by using suffixes." I still don't understand why you don't see a consistent
thread here. At this point, I honestly believe that you and SuStel are
driven by a sense of politics to disagree with me beyond rational
explanation.
So be it.
> But there *is* an explicit restriction keeping Type-5-suffixed
> nouns from appearing as the first noun of a noun-noun construction, and
> that's another point against lumping all noun suffixes in the "just a noun
> suffix" category.
...as is the movement of Type 5 noun suffixes to adjectival verbs following
the noun one might otherwise expect it to be attached to. The point is that
since Type 5 suffixed nouns have a grammatical function different from
subject and object, it is important to define this function for the entire
noun phrase, including the trailing adjectival verb.
> We must accept that Type 5 noun suffixes really do have an exceptional
> status.
Thank you for at least recognizing that much.
charghwI'