tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 18 19:31:12 2007
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Re: jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe'
Alan Anderson wrote:
> ja' mI'qey:
>
>> +++
>> predicative: (grammar) An element of the predicate of
>> a sentence which supplements the subject or object by
>> means of the verb. Predicatives may be nominal or
>> adjectival. A nominal predicative is a noun or pronoun
>> that follows a linking verb and renames the subject.
>> +++
>>
>> If we want to be precise, we're talking only about
>> nominal predicatives, but since adjectives don't
>> appear in pronoun-as-verb clauses, the distinction
>> hardly seems worth insisting on.
>>
>> How does this strike people?
>
> I think that it comes close, but it's not quite complete enough to be
> a good word for what we've been talking about. There are two
> apparently distinct kinds of "to be" constructions in Klingon, and
> only one of them fits the "predicative" idea. The other kind has a
> locative idea, which is neither nominal nor adjectival.
The Klingon grammar *I* described has only one kind of copula. Whether
the predicative (I'm going to use the word) has a locative sense or not
is irrelevant. The Klingon idea isn't identical to the English meaning,
but the word is a good one.
Wikipedia's article on adjectival or nominal predicatives
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicative_%28adjectival_or_nominal%29)
gives a few samples. Only one is relevant:
Bob is a *postman*.
QIn HIjwI' ghaH Bob'e'
{QIn HIjwI'} "message deliverer" (postman) is the (nominal) predicative.
It's a noun (phrase) that complements the "verb" (pronoun).
In the sentence
pa'DajDaq ghaH HoD'e'
The captain is in his quarters
what English has as a preposition Klingon has, in my analysis, a nominal
predicative. As before, it's a noun that complements the pronoun. {HoD}
is not used as the predicative here because {pa'DajDaq} is. This is why
it's not *{pa'DajDaq HoD ghaH}.
Whether the predicative is a locative or not is irrelevant to the
analysis of the grammar. All copulas can be described as
<predicative> <pronoun> [topic]'e'
SuStel
Stardate 7964.8
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