tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 04 23:53:25 2001

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RE: Noun phrases (was RE: KLBC: 'ol)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 9:33 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Noun phrases (was RE: KLBC: 'ol)
>
>
> ghItlh lawrence:
> > charghwI' ghItlh :
> >
> >  >Just to add what occurs to me:
> >  >
> >  >paw megh 'eb.
> >  >
> >  >Or if you really want to get somebody away from the TV and eat:
> >  >
> >  >nargh megh 'eb.
> >
> >  jIQoch.
> [...]
> >  My point (I did have one) is that this is a good situation to
> use a -meH
> >  phrase. It's not the lunch's opportunity, it's the for-eating-lunch
> >  opportunity.
>
> For even more precision (and because {megh} isn't a verb!):

I probably use {-meH} more than anyone else here. It is so useful in so many
settings. Meanwhile, there's one minor point that is merely an argument and
not a conclusive one: I'm pretty sure that in all of Okrand's canon,
whenever a {-meH} verb  is used to adverbially modify another verb, it has
often been a whole phrase including prefix and perhaps a subject and/or
object noun, but every time he's used it adjectivally, to describe a noun,
I've only seen him use {-meH} on a bare verb stem, as in {ghojmeH taj}.
Essentially, it becomes (if I have my terms right) a gerund for a noun-noun
genitive construction. That makes it a "learning's knife" or more smoothly,
a "knife of learning". I'm not sure it stretches to the point of becoming
"an opportunity of eating lunch". I think it is smoother as "an opportunity
of lunch".

{ghojmeH taj} doesn't need a prefix because there is no subject or object
for {ghojmeH}. This is as close to an infinitive as Klingon has. Meanwhile,
if {SopmeH} has an object, it needs a prefix, unless you are implying a
third person singular subject, which seems a little odd here. Unless you are
suggesting that some unspoken noun involves opportunity eating lunch, and
that that noun is appearing or escaping... "The
in-order-that-opportunity-eats-lunch X is escaping."

> narghlI' megh SopmeH 'eb

Likely, if that is allowable, it should be {narghlI' megh DaSopmeH 'eb} or
{narghlI' megh Soplu'meH 'eb}. Meanwhile, I tend to think it is probably
stretching {-meH} farther than Okrand likely intends, which frankly, I think
is a shame, since I often really want to do this (and sometimes I do it
anyway). For now, I'll stick with {megh 'eb}.

Okay. I'm playing and I'm not playing nice. Enjoy the joke and don't take
any of this seriously, except the note that Okrand has not, to my knowledge,
used more than a verb stem with {-meH} when it modifies a noun. This is
worthy of note, regardless of whether it is an accurate rule of grammar
evidenced only by example.

> -- ter'eS
>
> http://www.geocities.com/teresh_2000
> http://www.geocities.com/weseb_2000

charghwI' 'utlh

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