tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 10 14:28:32 2001
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Re: neH as suffix (was Re: help for someone new)
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: neH as suffix (was Re: help for someone new)
- Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 15:19:34 EDT
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