Re: ??HolDaq

[Steven Boozer <sboozer@midway.uchicago.edu>]

Okrand wrote SuStel:
 >>  jabbI'IDlIj vIlaDpu'.  qep'a' wejDIchDaq jatlhtaH tlhIngan Hol
 >>  HaDwI'pu'.  ghoHtaH je.  tIv'eghtaH je.  vaj SuquvmoH.

Voragh:
>>The only oddity is his putting {-Daq} on the ordinal number {wejDIch}
>>"third".  Is this a clue that ordinals can take noun suffixes?  At the
>>time, SuStel interpreted {qep'a' wejDIch} as being a proper noun, like most
>>named academic conferences in academia Okrand would have been familiar
>>with, and was therefore an exception: i.e. "at The Third [KLI] Conference".

Sangqar:
>At first glance, this just seemed to me like using verbs 
>adjectivally.  Like stative verbs when used as adjectives, ordinal numbers 
>follow the noun.
>Like stative verbs when used as adjectives, ordinal numbers describe the 
>noun.  Therefore, like stative verbs when used as adjectives, ordinal 
>numbers take any Type 5 suffixes that belong to the noun phrase.  I would 
>probably apply this rule to an ordinal number without thinking about it, 
>which is apparently what MO did.   I wouldn't jump to conclusions by 
>guessing that ordinal numbers can take just any noun suffix.

That would be the more conservative interpretation.  We do know that Type 5 
("syntactic marker") noun suffixes behave a bit oddly.  For example, they 
are attached to the following modifying quality of a noun, if it has one, 
*not* the noun itself.  Cf. TKD p.50:

    If a Type 5 noun suffix is used (section 3.3.5), it follows the verb,
    which, when used to modify the noun in this way, can have no other
    suffix except the rover {-qu'} "emphatic". The Type 5 noun suffix
    follows {-qu'} ... {veng tInqu'Daq} "in the very big city".

Without this rule we would have had to say *{vengDaq tInqu'}.

Perhaps using {-Daq} on a following ordinal, which occupies the same 
position as a modifying quality - e.g. {veng wa'DIch}, {veng tInqu'} - is a 
variant of this rule.  It may feel more natural for Klingons to put these 
particular noun suffixes on the modifier, even if it isn't a noun.  Put 
them on the entire noun + modifier phrase in other words:  {[veng 
wa'DIch]Daq}, {[veng tInqu']Daq}, etc.

As always, it would be nice to have more examples.


-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons