[tlhIngan Hol] mughmeH laH vs mughlaHghach

[Ed Bailey]

On Wed, May 16, 2018 at 9:44 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:

> On 5/16/2018 9:29 AM, SuStel wrote:
>
>
> *ghItlhvam mughlu'meH, laH chavlu'pu' *
> *In order that one translates this manuscript, one has achieved the
> ability. *
>
>
> *[N1:ghItlhvam] [N2:mughlu'meH laH] chavlu'pu' **One has achieved this
> manuscript's ability for one to translate.*
>
> I don't see any other possible interpretations of this sentence. What are
> the many possible genitive relations?
>
> In the first interpretation, the indefinite subject plans to translates
> the manuscript. In the second interpretation, the manuscript has an ability
> of translation. The *-lu'* might screw that up, but at best that makes
> the interpretation invalid; it doesn't give someone ELSE the ability to
> translate the manuscript, and it doesn't change the manuscript's ability to
> translate something into an ability for someone to translate IT.
>
> Wait, I see another interpretation:
>
>
> *[NP:ghItlhvam mughlu'meH laH] chavlu'pu' **One has achieved the ability
> in order that one translates this manuscript.*
>
> So you'd accept that the purpose clause in a noun phrase can have an
object? This makes it more like a relative clause. It would be interesting
to compare nouns with purpose clauses to relative clauses. There are enough
similarities that one could stumble over the differences. One difference is
that the purpose clause must still precede that which it modifies, correct?
And the topic marker can make either subject or object be the head noun of
a relative clause, but I don't get that this could happen with a purpose
clause. But this is a major digression that would need its own thread.

Let's bring this back to Aurélie's original point: would *ghItlhvam
mughlaHghach chavlu'pu'* be a better way to say "The ability to translate
this manuscript has been achieved" (colloquially, "They've figured out how
to translate this manuscript")? It seems like a good choice to me,
since *-ghach
*nominalizes in such a way that *mughlaHghach* encompasses both "ability to
translate" and "ability to be translated."

~mIp'av
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