tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 06 10:38:07 2000
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RE: KLBC: nuq as object
taD:
: Yep, {nuq Sop puq neH SoSDaj} is good also.
ter'eS:
> This looks odd to me. As I understand it, <verb> + {neH} when both have
> the same subject (eg. {DaSop DaneH}) is legal for expressing "want to
> <verb>", but I don't think the principal extends to phrases where the two
> verbs have different subjects.
taD:
: I'm not sure whether we have any canon usage of the verb {neH} with a
: different subject from the first verb.
Yes, we do:
Dalegh vIneH
I want you to see him. TKD
: However, I don't think there's any
: indication that we can't use it this way. We do have canon examples of other
: sentence-as-objects where the two verbs have different subjects (some are on
: page 66 of TKD), and TKD says that {neH} works the same as the other
: sentence-as-object situations, except that the pronoun {'e'} is omitted.
taD is right: It's perfectly legal, though ter'eS's Sprachgefühl was on-target
in that this change of subject is not common - no doubt because of the
potential for confusion. In almost all of Okrand's examples that I could find,
the subject of {neH} is also the subject of the other verb.
We do, though, have one beautifully ambiguous example from KGT:
ghaH vuv Sus neH
"he/she wants the wind to respect him/her" (p.122)
Although the subject of the two verbs is usually the same in this idiom, i.e.:
he wants the wind to respect him
she wants the wind to respect her
since {ghaH} (as well as the 3rd person "zero-prefix") is gender-neutral - it
could "legally" be translated into English as either:
he wants the wind to respect her
or
she wants the wind to respect him
depending on context (though Klingons might add the names just to keep things
clear). Although it's confusing, it's also grammatical.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons