tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 25 17:38:37 2009
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Re: The topic marker -'e'
Steven Lytle wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Christopher Doty
> <[email protected]>wrote:
>>> I don't think I've ever seen that example.
>> ...
>>> I am also convinced that Okrand simply forgot that the rules in
>>> TKD forbid this sort of thing.
>> Can you tell me what rule this is? I'm still not following. I
>> know that there is a rule that suffixes can't go on the first noun
>> in a N-N construction, but I haven't seen a rule that says all
>> noun-noun sequences are automatically noun-noun constructions...
>
> Another common example of two nouns next to each other that are not
> in a noun-noun construction is all the cases of nouns joined by a
> conjunction, e.g., {vav SoS je].
Where a noun conjunction is absent, this cannot be the explanation.
Where there *is* a conjunction, each noun or noun phrase being joined
has equal status with the others, and has the same role in the sentence.
My point has not been that two nouns next to each other have to form a
noun-noun construction. It is that when one noun modifies another noun,
rather than a verb, those nouns must be in a noun-noun construction.
Since the first noun of a noun-noun construction cannot have a syntactic
marker on it, sentences where you see a syntactically marked noun
followed by another noun cannot be interpreted as the first modifying
the second; the marked noun can only be interpreted as modifying or
acting in relation to the verb.
--
SuStel
tlhIngan Hol MUSH
http://trimboli.name/mush
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