tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 11 22:05:50 2004

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Re: taH (was Re: mu' lo' QaQ 'oSbogh mu'tlheghmey)

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

ghItlhpu' De'vID:

>lolbe'chugh SuvwI' lol 'Iv?  Without any other context, who
>but the warrior could be the one in the stance?

You're completely correct in terms of the sentence standing alone. I was 
referring to possibilities of the sentence in context. {DaHjaj cheng Sa''e' 
SuvwI' je vIlegh 'ej DuHIvmeH SuvwI' lol ghaH} for instance. I'm not saying 
that it would be more likely (in fact, it'd be far less likely to occur, and 
this is a somewhat contrived example), I was just making the point that 
there's some (but not much) room for ambiguity there.

>I don't see
>how <DuHIvmeH lol SuvwI'> is any less ambiguous than
><DuHIvmeH SuvwI' lol ghaH>.  You're going from "In order
>for the warrior to attack you, he is in a stance" to "In
>order that he attacks you, the warrior is in a stance."

While your interpretation is correct, I'd intended the {-meH} clause as a 
"subjectless" one. I was under the impression that {-meH} clauses didn't 
necessarily need subjects: in {ghojmeH taj}, the dagger isn't doing any 
learning; there's no explicit subject for the verb {ghojmeH}. In the same 
way, I didn't intend {DuHIvmeH} to mean "in order that *he* attacks you", 
but "in order *to* attack you".

>Your suggestion is shorter, but the same effect can be
>obtained by <DuHIvmeH SuvwI', lol>.  I wonder if MO stuck
>the <ghaH> in there so it wouldn't look like the <lol> was
>acting adjectivally on <SuvwI'>?

If {lol} was adjectival in {DuHIvmeH SuvwI' lol}, the whole thing would just 
be a sentence fragment: "In order that the in-a-stance warrior attacks you." 
There's no main clause, so there wouldn't be a need for {ghaH}.

Although, I was thinking yesterday about how {DuHIvmeH SuvwI' lol ghaH} 
could work if {lol} *was* adjectival: "He is a warrior in a stance in order 
to attack you". But the focus would be shifted more to the person in 
question being a warrior, not to the stance.

Savan.

QeS lagh

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