[tlhIngan Hol] The book of our good captain

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Fri Jul 15 00:50:52 PDT 2016


On 14 July 2016 at 16:21, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13 July 2016 at 18:57, Terrence Donnelly
> <terrence.donnelly at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> Let's not forget the canon construction {HIq Datlhutlh DaneHbogh yIngu'}.
>
> Hold on. That's not actually canon, is it?
>
> What is the head noun of the {-bogh} clause here? Because *that* is
> the object of {ngu'}. I don't believe this question is asking the same
> thing as {nuq Datlhutlh DaneH}.

Does no one else read this sentence as "Identify the you-drink-alcohol
that you want?"

Perhaps the problem I have with this sentence will be clearer with a
verb other than {neH} (because of the dropped {'e'}):
{DoS DaqIp 'e' DanID} "you try to hit a target"
*{nuq DaqIp 'e' DanID} "what are you trying to hit?" (question as object)
*{DoS DaqIp 'e' DanIDbogh yIngu'} attempt at "identify the target you
try to hit" (attempted recast along the suggested lines)

The QAO construction is controversial, but apparently consistent with
the grammar given in TKD and similar to a canon sentence, {nuq
Datlhutlh DaneH}.

The recast seems to me to mean something else. The object of {nID} is
the sentence {DoS DaqIp}, and transitively that's the object of
{ngu'}. If I can make sense of the sentence at all, it means something
like "identify that you drink alcohol, which you want".

Maybe there is a way to recast this question, but I don't think the
suggested solution works.

-- 
De'vID



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