tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 16 18:16:08 2002
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Re: adverbs
From: "Stephan Schneider" <[email protected]>
> >You're right that /naDev/ is sometimes (often?) not the object of a
> >sentence, as in your /naDev jIQong/ example. However, it's still a noun.
> >It might be said to be acting adverbially, in that it modifies the
context
> >of the verb, but it's still a noun.
>
> as agnieszka wrote, the part of speech and the part of sentence are
> two different things (this was very enlightening, thank you,
> agnieszka).
> so <naDev> can be a noun (part of speech), but it can act as an
> adverbial (part of sentence).
> likely also <batlh> is a noun that can act as an adverbial, but not
> every noun can do so, and MO had to indicate this capability of being
> an adverbial in TKD.
toH! DaH SayajchoH.
I see where you're going with this. I think what got me stuck was the fact
that the words /batlh/, /Do'/, and /motlh/ are listed once as words as a
"part of speech," and then also listed as "part of sentence" with apparently
equality. But I could certainly accept the idea that it's really the same
word, acting in more than one way.
It really tends to become a game of naming things, though. You can choose
the terminology that suits your purpose (but be sure to be clear to
everyone, as they'll be expecting the terminology used in TKD!).
/naDev/ is an adverbial in the sense that it modifies the verb semantically,
but it's a noun as a part of speech. And when you look up /naDev/ in the
dictionary, you're going to find "(n)," not "(adv)."
> the question i wanted to ask was if the rule that <naDev> is a noun
> that cannot take <-Daq> is equal to the rule that <naDev> can act
> like an adverbial. (can <naDev> take <-vo'>?)
Yes, it can. /naDevvo' vaS'a'Daq majaHlaH'a'/ "Can we get to the Great Hall
from here?" (Power Klingon, joke-telling section)
> >Most of the time, this distinction isn't important. But we can be pretty
> >sure that while /batlhHa'/ is perfectly valid, */naDevHa'/ is not.
>
> <naDevHa'> would be semantically ... difficult (but this way you
> could say something like "this is not here" (john lennon): <naDev taH
> naDevHa'> :) ).
I don't have so much trouble with the semantic notion of */naDevHa'/, but I
don't think it's grammatical.
> anyway, it's not a rule that you can add <-Ha'> to an adverbial.
Err . . . well, certain adverbials are known to take /-Ha'/. Or, at least,
there are certain adverbials that end in /-Ha'/ that happen to be the exact
opposite of the same adverbial without /-Ha'/. (HolQeD Vol. 4, No. 4, p.
11) When I use the word "adverbial" here, I am referring to those words
that Marc Okrand calls "adverbials" in TKD, not to the notion of "anything
that modifies the verb."
> so is there a difference between "<naDev> doesn't take <-Daq>" and
> "<naDev> is a noun that can act like an adverbial"?
I think that /naDev/ doesn't take /-Daq/ because /naDev/ doesn't take
/-Daq/, and therefore the two statements are unrelated. Even when you have
/naDevvo'/, it's still acting in an adverbial fashion, in that it modifies
the action of the verb.
SuStel
Stardate 2540.6