tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 17 08:54:07 2007

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Re: jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe'

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

QeS 'utlh wrote:
> Okay, this is my biggest problem with the interpretation. Both you
> and SuStel have simply glossed over the issue of the bizarre word
> order and happily accepted it as canon.

Happily? No. The only other position anyone has ever taken is that the 
sentence is completely bogus; that Okrand was smoking weed when he came 
up with it. He makes errors ALL THE TIME. We know that. We don't have to 
accept one strange sentence as the Way Things Are just because Okrand 
wrote it.

> My problem is that accepting such a word order as grammatical implies
>  certain things: we have no other example, anywhere, of anything but
> a subject coming after a verb or a topic coming after a copulative.
> If {naDev} *is* appearing in topic position here, there are two
> implications that I have trouble dealing with: Can the structure be
> extended, and if so, by how much? What else could appear in the topic
> position? And more to the point, if {naDev} is truly a topic here,
> why isn't it marked with the topic suffix?

I didn't call {naDev} the topic in this sentence; it's the beable. It's 
just in the wrong position.

> jang SuStel, ja':
>> I don't think you can justifiably claim that "the restaurant where
>> we ate" is a useful illustration unless you solve the "ship in
>> which I fled" issue.
> 
> Your analysis of {jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe'} ("I don't know the here
> I am") solves the issue for copulative constructions with the three
> locative stamp nouns. The question remains, can you do it with
> ordinary nouns (so ?{maHtaHbogh Qe'Daq} "the restaurant where we
> are"?)?

Qe'Daq maHtaHbogh. If the theory is sound, then yes, this works. "In the 
restaurant where we are."

SuStel
Stardate 7960.8

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