tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 10 14:28:32 2001

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Re: neH as suffix (was Re: help for someone new)



ghItlh Qov:

> My mailer mangled this, so I've edited it ...
> > My impression is that > 
>> Klingon progressed from free particles to bound morphemes, at > least in 
>> the verb system. In fact, I think we have an example of > that happening 
>> right now: the verb {neH}. 

> I think it's  an interesting speculation and that there's no need to argue 
> against it or shoot it down because he's not arguing that he be allowed to 
> do it and have it considered Klingon, and it doesn't affect anything we do 
> now.
> 
> - Qov

Actually, I think this idea works even better with nouns! As I imagine it, in {no' no' Hol}, there were lots of nouns that could be used adverbially.  We can still see vestiges of this in timestamps like {ben}, etc., and in isolated words like {naDev}.  All these are officially nouns but can be used as adverbs with no change in form just by putting them at the beginning of the sentence. In {no' no' Hol}, there were many others, too.  These nouns were used with other nouns in N1-N2 constructions to express adverbial concepts.  A sentence like ?{DaH jaj meH Daq HoD vaD taj vInob}
"now's day bridge's location officer's benefit knife I-give" is gibberish to us but might have been perfectly acceptable in proto-Klingon.

Over time, these particular nouns lost their independence and became true suffixes, except for {Daq}, which became a suffix but also stayed an independent word.  This is why suffixed nouns modify the entire sentence and not just words: {mIvDaq vIghro' vIlegh} means "While in my helmit, I see a cat", not *"I see the Cat in the Hat".  A suffixed noun functions just like an adverb, a legacy of its origin as a N1-N2 construction used adverbially.

AS you say, just speculation, and not relevant to our
present-day use of tlhIngan Hol 8+)

-- ter'eS


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