[tlhIngan Hol] ordering of multiple adverbials

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Tue Sep 17 03:26:53 PDT 2019


On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 18:28, Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:

> It seems almost as if there were types of adverbs similar to the way
> Klingon has types of verb suffixes. {vaj} could be adverbial Type 1, {chaq}
> adverbial Type 2, {tugh} Type 3, and {batlh} Type 4. You probably can’t
> have two of the same Type, and you can have zero or one of each type in any
> verb clause.
>
> We could then look at other adverbials and argue over which one belongs to
> which type and have a good old grammatical battle over it.
>

I think that there's a natural ordering imposed by the meaning you want to
express in a specific sentence, but I don't think the order is fixed in
general, or that you can't have two of the same type. For example, it seems
clear to me that {vaj} and {chaq} should typically come before
anything else, but I'm not sure that you can't say either {pe'vIl tugh
nuHIv} or {tugh pe'vIl nuHIv} depending on what you want to emphasise
between {tugh} and {pe'vIl}.

I'm also not sure that {vaj} has to come before {chaq}. I think {vaj
chaq...} "In that case, perhaps..." and {chaq vaj...} "Perhaps, in that
case..." are both sensible constructions, depending on whether the
consequence is conditional or not.

And even though one adverbial may typically or frequently precede another
because it's the more common situation, I don't think the other order is
ruled out when it's warranted.

{chaq tugh nuHIv} (I don't know when the enemy will attack us; perhaps it
is soon)
{tugh chaq nuHIv} (I know the enemy will act soon; perhaps they will attack
us)

The combination {chaq tugh...} is probably much more common, but I can see
{tugh chaq...} making sense in some specific contexts, or for emphasis
("SOON the enemy may attack us").

-- 
De'vID
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