tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 15 16:13:49 2007

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Re: jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe'

QeS 'utlh ([email protected])



ghItlhpu' qa'vaj, ja':
>(As we all know), the location of <> in the sentence is
>syntactically consistent with two possibile roles.  One is that it is a
>locative in the header slot, the other is that it is the object of the
>copula (using the terms that you have offered).

Or (and this is where it can mess with your head a little) it might be both.

Recall that per the interview with Okrand in HolQeD 7.4, {-Daq} can
mark the direct object of some verbs of motion even when the verb
itself contains the idea of motion to a location. {bIQtIqDaq vIjaH}
means "I go to the river", but although the {-Daq} indicates that
{bIQtIq} is some sort of locative header, the verb still carries
agreement for it, indicating that the relationship is somewhat closer
than the relationship between a normal header and the verb it modifies.

The problem is that we can't know for certain whether this is the case
with the locative forms of what SuStel calls copulatives, because verb
agreement for the object doesn't surface on pronouns-as-verbs. But it's possible that {pa'Daq} in {pa'Daq ghaHtaH HoD'e'} might behave
in the same way as {bIQtIqDaq} does in {bIQtIqDaq vIjaH}, with the
link between it and the verb it modifies being somewhat closer than
your ordinary, run-of-the-mill locative header.

This also solves the problem of having a locative noun as the head of a
relative clause in {naDev jIHtaHbogh}, which appears to be generally
impossible in Klingon: "I couldn't make the {­bogh} thing work for me
with anything other than subject or object." (interview with Okrand in
HQ:4.2, p.5). (And before anyone says that {naDev} doesn't carry a
suffix, so it could be an ordinary direct object, I believe that in {naDev
jIHtaHbogh}, {naDev} has to be interpreted in its locative-stamp
function, because analysing it the other way would make no sense: "this
area which I am"?)

And on an unrelated note, further to what I was saying yesterday, this
has reminded me that not only do we have an example of {-Daq} on a
subject, but we do also have examples of {-Daq} on certain types of
direct object.

taH:
>On the other hand, If the intended meaning is "The captain is the
>room location", then <> can be viewed as the object of
>the copula:
>pa'Daq ghaHtaH HoD'e'
>"The captain is the room location".

Wouldn't it make more sense to invert it and say {HoD Daq 'oHtaH
pa''e'} "the room is the captain's location"? (And {pa'Daq} means "in
the room" and I believe would almost always be interpreted as such.
This is one reason why I avoid coining new compound nouns and stick
to the noun-noun construction.)

QeS 'utlh
tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pab po'wI'
(Grammarian of the Klingon Language Institute)


not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh

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