tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 22 19:45:29 2004

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Re: mIvDaq yIH

QeS lagh ([email protected])



ghItlhpu' lay'tel SIvten:

>How about when the phrase is the subject?  E.g., {Hoch Soj Sop mIvDaq yIH} 
>(The tribble in the helmet ate all the food) or {Duj leghlu'meH Qap telDaq 
>wovmoHwI'mey} (Wing lights function to make the ship visible).  I'm not 
>saying these are legitimate sentences; I don't think they are.

You can't offer ungrammatical sentences as examples. In these cases, I'd be 
expecting a verb, in the same way as I would with the lone noun "phrases":

{Hoch Soj Sop mIvDaq yIH (tu'lu'bogh)}
{Duj leghlu'meH Qap telDaq wovmoHwI'mey (lutu'lu'bogh)}

>I'm just offering a case where the locative noun can't be considered a 
>sentence
>modifier due to its location.

In these cases, the noun plus {-Daq} would still not be a noun modifier. 
Instead, it would be the modifier of the hypothetical elided verb, and thus 
a "sentence" modifier (even though a verb plus {-bogh} isn't strictly a 
sentence, but a relative clause). Again, if the case you propose isn't 
grammatical, then you can't put it forward as part of this argument.

I like to think of a noun-noun construction this way: The first noun 
actually already has a Type 5 suffix - a null suffix: -(0). If a noun 
already has this type 5 suffix - for instance, {tel-(0) wovmoHwI'} "wing's 
light" - you can't add another Type 5 suffix, any more than you can say 
*{vIleghpu'taH} or *{Sor'a'oy}. So {mIvDaq} and {yIH} aren't parts of a 
noun-noun construction, but two grammatically unlinked nouns that just 
happen to be next to each other.

Savan.

QeS lagh

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