tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 20 20:29:38 2007
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Re: suffixes on adjectival verbs
- From: "Qang qu'wI'" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: suffixes on adjectival verbs
- Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:28:54 -0600
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On 11/19/07, Steven Boozer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Voragh:
>
> Qang qu'wI':
> >This is not 100% what I wanted to hear, but it'll do (I think). Looking
> >through the list that you provided, I think the only true counter-example
> >is:
> >
> > wa'maH yIHmey lI'be'
> > ten useless tribbles. CK
> >
> >For reasons unknown to me, my tlhIngan Hol mu'ghom has {motlhbe'} as it's
> >own entry, so this one isn't really a strong counter-example:
> >
> > tera'ngan motlhbe' SoH
> > You are an unusual Terran. PK
>
>
> True, but {motlhbe'} "be unusual" is not a separate verb. IOW you cannot
> add {-be'} and say *{motlhbe'be'} "not be unusual". It was included
> simply
> to make it easy for the average non-linguist Star Trek fan who wanted to
> look up "unusual".
That's a great point. It (thankfully) undermines the nagging concern I had
that maybe MO had added this word specifically in order to be consistent
with only allowing {-qu'} because he actually meant what was written in
TKD. Interestingly, just be accident I stumbled onto this today in
the forum archives:
/tlhIngan-Hol/1997/September/msg00017.html
> SuStel: (refering to things found in KGT)
>
>
> p. 148 {Duj ngaDHa'}
>
> It's official: we can use {-Ha'} on adjectival verbs. Yes, it's
in a slang
> expression, but Okrand says nothing about this being nonstandard
grammar (he's
> very careful about that sort of thing all through the slang
section).
The engineer in me has a natural aversion to making such a strong
generalization from just one data sample. But that sensibility probably
doesn't apply to deducing languages from samples. Since languages follow
rules, and by definition the exceptions should be rare compared to the cases
that follow the rules (ok-- DIvI' Hol notwithstanding <g>), than the most
probable explanation for a single sample would be that it is a result of a
rule. Even if it ultimately turns out to be wrong, the correct way to
proceed forward would be to assume the general rule until further evidence
indicates that it is an exception (thinking in terms of being in a situation
of trying to reconstruct a 'lost' language from samples). I'll have to get
used to that.
--
Qang qu'wI'