tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 01 11:33:54 2002
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Re: subjects in complex sentences
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: subjects in complex sentences
- Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 11:33:36 EST
ghItlh SuStel:
> In the sentence /chargh SuvwI' 'e' ngIl/, I agree that there is the
> potential to not be sure what the subject of /ngIl/ is, especially if
> /chargh/ has an object as well (e.g., /mangghom chargh SuvwI' 'e' ngIl/).
> This is when you'd want to use /SuvwI'/ twice. /chargh SuvwI' 'e' ngIl
> SuvwI'/. This is, in my opinion, the best way to handle nouns and pronouns
> in this example.
>
Actually, the more I look at {chargh SuvwI' 'e' ngIl},
the more I like it. The conventional assumption that
the elided second noun is usually the same as the
subject of the first verb would remove most ambiguity.
Or make it no more ambiguous than it's English
equivalent. We seem to get along OK with the ambiguity in this case.
> However, we have the sentences which Okrand has produced, which would
> support /chargh 'e' ngIl SuvwI'/. I won't argue against using that, but I
> won't be using it often myself unless he downright tells us that's how it's
> done. (I also didn't use the "prefix trick" until he actually explained it,
> because let's face it: he created it to explain away all the bad grammar he
> produced while trying to translate things like "Give me the ro'keg blood
> pie." It's really just an excuse to copy English grammar.
>
I dunno, I don't actually hate English grammar. If a
feature of Klingon flows logically from the established
grammar, so what if it seems to copy English.
Japanese uses the Adj+noun form just like English.
Does this make Japanese a copy of English?
> If there is a justification that Okrand could come up with, it is probably
> going to be this: the sentence structure of SAO represents (but isn't
> actually) Sentence-V-Subject, and so if the subject of Sentence is the same
> as Subject, it is elided in favor of Subject, which is with the main verb.
>
I bet the Klingons feel that (V+suffix/V neH/ V 'e' V) + Noun are all in some sense equivalent semantic
structures. The fact that you can insert different subjects in the last two forms would just point up the fact that they really aren't equivalent grammatically.
> SuStel
-- ter'eS