tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 16 21:48:31 2005
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Re: comparative as question
- From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: comparative as question
- Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 14:48:12 +1000
- Bcc:
ghelpu' Dar'Qang:
>How would one form the question: "Is this table bigger than that table"?
jang yemQo'yaD:
>I'm sure there are many ways to do it. The first solution that came to my
>mind was:
>tIn raSvam 'ej mach raSvetlh. qar'a'?
While I would understand this one, the idea of comparison is more implicit
in this. Personally, I would do it the same way as ghunchu'wI' and use the
tag question after a garden-variety {A Q law' B Q puS} comparative
construct: {raSvam tIn law' raSvetlh tIn puS qar'a'}. After all, {qar'a'} is
grammatically a separate sentence, so that is definitely grammatical.
Canon indicates that verbs in the comparative construct cannot take prefixes
(in a recent issue of HolQeD, MO used the phrase {jIH Doy' law' SoH Doy'
puS} "I am more tired than you"), so this makes me think that the whole
construct is pretty much petrified, and that may preclude the presence of
any affixes on the verbs involved. Nevertheless, the fact that different
verbs can be slotted in (beyond the canon pairs in TKD, I've seen {tIn/mach}
and {SuD/Doq} used on the list) may mean it's not so cut-and-dried as we
might believe.
In short, we have no canon evidence that tells us suffixes can be used on
the comparative construct, and we can't even hazard a good guess as to where
they might go - but never say never. If you do, MO's likely to pop out and
say "Well, *almost* never, but..." :)
Savan,
QeS lagh
taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
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