tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 25 00:30:49 2011

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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Monopoly: another card

De'vID jonpIn ([email protected])



<div><br></div>bI&#39;reng:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="im">&gt; Some speculation: while Okrand defines {net} as being used when the<br>

&gt; subject of the verb is &quot;one, someone&quot;, the examples given in TKD seem to<br>
&gt; mean &quot;people in general&quot; (eg, qama&#39;pu&#39; DIHoH net Sov). Maybe he avoided<br>
&gt; {net} because &quot;people in general&quot; did not choose the player to join the<br>
yan<br>
&gt; &#39;ISletlh, but some specific unnamed person. In that case, maybe {&#39;e&#39;<br>
wIvlu&#39;} is<br>
&gt; the way to go. Some more examples of {&#39;e&#39;} and {net} from canon might<br>
&gt; clarify the issue.<br>
</div></blockquote><div> </div><div>SuStel:</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">He&#39;s done it before:<br>
<br>
yInlu&#39;taH &#39;e&#39; bajnISlu&#39;<br>
survival must be earned<br>
<br>
yay chavlu&#39; &#39;e&#39; bajnISlu&#39;<br>
victory myst be earned<br>
<br>
(TKW 125)<br>
<br>
Both of these are talking about people in general, and not a specific,<br>
unnamed person. I see no reason to believe that {&#39;e&#39;} and {net} distinguish<br>
between these. If talking about a specific, unnamed person, I would expect<br>
to see {vay&#39;}.</blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>It&#39;s possible that MO simply made a mistake.  Nevertheless, it&#39;s not out of the question that {&#39;e&#39; X-lu&#39;} and {net X} are used differently.  Here is some more speculation.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Perhaps {net} is used in those instances where, were the sentence to be expressed in the passive voice (in English), the object of {net} would naturally be the subject of the passive voice sentence.  For instance:</div>
<div><br></div><div>    {T net Sov} &quot;It is known that T&quot; =&gt; &quot;T is known&quot;</div><div>    {T net legh} &quot;It is seen that T&quot; =&gt; &quot;T is seen&quot;</div><div><br></div><div>In the above, &quot;it&quot; (in &quot;it is known&quot; or &quot;it is seen&quot;) refers to the sentence T (e.g., T = {qama&#39;pu&#39; DIHoH}).  But note that in the translation of the following sentence into passive voice, &quot;it&quot; is not the natural subject:</div>
<div><br></div><div>    {Damuv &#39;e&#39; wIvlu&#39;} &quot;someone chooses that you join it&quot; =&gt; &quot;<i>you</i> are chosen to join it&quot;</div><div><br></div><div><div>The subject of &quot;to be chosen&quot; is not the <i>sentence</i> &quot;you join it&quot;, but the <i>pronoun</i> &quot;you&quot;.  Or, if you will, you can say that in the sentence {X &#39;e&#39; Y-lu&#39;}, the verb Y shares the subject with the verb of the sentence X.  Contrast this with:</div>
</div><div><br></div><div><div>    {Damuv net wIv} &quot;it is chosen that [you join it]&quot; =&gt; &quot;[you join it] is chosen&quot;</div></div><div><br></div><div>The topic or subject here is no longer &quot;you&quot;, but the sentence &quot;you join it&quot;.  Similarly, consider the sentence:</div>
<div><br></div><div>    {yInlu&#39;taH &#39;e&#39; bajnISlu&#39;} &quot;someone needs to earn that someone [the same person] continues to live} =&gt; &quot;<i>survival</i> must be earned&quot;, &quot;<i>a person&#39;s survival</i> must be earned <i>by that same person</i>&quot;</div>
<div><br></div><div>In the above, the subject of {baj} is the <i>same</i> (indefinite) person as the subject of {yIn}.  A person must earn <i>that person</i>&#39;s own survival.  Again, contrast this with:</div><div><br></div>
<div>    {yInlu&#39;taH net bajnIS} &quot;it must be earned that [someone continues to live]&quot; =&gt; &quot;[someone continues to live] must be earned&quot;</div><div><br></div><div>It is no longer clear that {baj} has the same subject as {yIn}.  Perhaps someone (say, Kirk&#39;s son David Marcus) is being held hostage, and <i>someone else</i> (Kirk) must earn the former&#39;s (David&#39;s) survival.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Note that in the other {&#39;e&#39; bajnISlu&#39;} example, the preceding sentence&#39;s verb also has {-lu&#39;}:</div><div><br></div><div>    {yay chavlu&#39; &#39;e&#39; bajnISlu&#39;} &quot;someone needs to earn that someone [the same person] achieves victory&quot; =&gt; &quot;<i>victory</i> must be earned&quot;, &quot;<i>the achievement of a victory</i> must be earned <i>by the person who achieves it</i>&quot;</div>
<div><br></div><div>With {net}, the meaning is not the same:</div><div><br></div><div>    {yay chavlu&#39; net bajnIS} &quot;it must be earned that [someone achieves victory]&quot; =&gt; &quot;[someone achieves victory] must be earned (not necessarily by the same person?)&quot;</div>
<div><br></div><div>A sentence of the form {X-lu&#39; &#39;e&#39; Y-lu&#39;} means that the verb Y has the same indefinite subject as the verb X, whereas no such relationship exists between the subjects of X and Y in {X-lu&#39; net Y}.  </div>
<div><br></div><div>More generally, a sentence of the form {X &#39;e&#39; Y-lu&#39;} means that the subject of the sentence X is the object of the sentence Y.  Thus, {Damuv &#39;e&#39; wIvlu&#39;} is like {Damuv; <i>SoH</i> DawIvlu&#39;}, whereas {Damuv net wIv} is like {Damuv; <i>&#39;oH</i> wIvlu&#39;}.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The above (highly speculative) theory fits the examples given in this thread, at least.  Are there any canon examples that contradict it?</div><div><br></div>-- <br>De&#39;vID<br>
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