tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 16 09:03:46 2000

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Re: Thinking the sentence structure




ja' SuStel:
> Here's a somewhat revised, but not perfect, plan:
> 
> <question word> <noun phrase> <adverbial> <object> <verb> <subject>.
> 
you've solicited it, so here it goes:

three cheers for SuStel's insightfulness, genius and all-around swellnes
Yay! Yay! Yay!

Huch vIHutlhmo' SuStelvaD DarSeq vIngeHlaHbe'. Do'Ha'!

one comment: have you considered integrating the category "question
word" into the rest, as they are usually taking the place of either
a "noun phrase"/"object"/"subject" or a part of it (e.g. {'ar})?
what do you think of this idea?

also, although I noticed you cautiously labelled your plan as "not
perfect", <adverbials> are allowed to show up between <object> and
<verb> if the object is marked with -'e'. This raises the question
as to whether objects marked with -Daq as in {juHwIjDaq vIghoS} may
be followed by adverbials as well: ?{juHwIjDaq QIt vIghoS} and how
this "interferes" with your interpretation of how words with suffixes
are analyzed. Certainly your interpretaion makes sense in languages
like English. But languages like Turkish seem to be structurally
closer to Klingon in the way they form words and especially verbs.
Any native speakers of Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish out there?

                                           Marc Ruehlaender
                                           aka HomDoq
                                           [email protected]


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