tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 09 12:18:05 2001
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Re: Expelling Ambiguity
From: "Marc Ruehlaender" <[email protected]>
> SuStel:
> > > I feel certain that the position of a time reference at the
> > > beginning of a
> > > sentence is mentioned by Okrand somewhere, but I don't have my
> > > books with me
> > > when I'm at work! Does anyone know what the source is?
> if that's what SuStel was thinking of, it goes like this:
> (TKD, Addendum, p 179, 6.7. Placement of Adverbial elements)
>
> "It is possible for an element of another type to precede the
> adverb. Most commonly this is a time element."
>
> It doesn't say anything about the ordering of "time element"s
> and other "element of another type"s (i.e. other than subject
> or object).
That may be the passage I was thinking of, but if so, it doesn't seem to
give any compelling evidence that a time element MUST come in any particular
location. It just says that if you find a word before an adverb, it's
probably going to be a time element.
Isn't there some source that says that time elements tend to "come at the
beginning" of a sentence? I'm thinking it might be in CONVERSATIONAL
KLINGON, in which case I can check it in my car on the way home. But if
it's in CK, it's not going to be a particularly definitive statement: CK
tends to oversimplify its description of grammar. If it says "time words
come at the beginning of an expression," that's not a very strong
indication. Better would me actually remembering to go through canon
tonight and seeing what's already been done.
If my instincts are correct (roD DujwIj vIvoq), adverbials TEND to come
before header nouns, but are not REQUIRED to do so. In cases where a header
noun (or noun phrase) comes before an adverbial, it will LIKELY be a time
element, but not necessarily.
SuStel
Stardate 1354.7