[tlhIngan Hol] sao and to be sentences

[SuStel]

On 6/29/2020 8:22 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
> Suppose we write:
>
> romuluS wo' wIQaw'chu' 'e' 'oHbe' ngoQmaj'e'
> our goal isn't to annihilate the romulan empire
>
> Would there be a problem with a construction as the above ?

Unknown.


> On one hand, I can't be able to see anything grammatically wrong with it,

Here's what might be wrong with it: *'e'* can only be an object. We 
don't know if the first noun in a "to be" sentence is considered an object.

The pronoun in a "to be" sentence doesn't "act upon" an object the way a 
verb does. "To be" sentences are said to have subjects, but in one-noun 
"to be" sentences, that subject is the pronoun itself, while in two-noun 
"to be" sentences, the subject is the topic noun. So the terminology is 
very imprecise and unreliable.

And even if we decide to call the first noun an object (just as in 
English we can have objects of things that aren't verbs, like objects of 
prepositions), the description of *'e'* and *net* say "They are always 
treated as the object of the verb..." There is no verb in a "to be" 
sentence.

So while it's not impossible that *'e'* could go with a "to be" 
sentence, there is no indication that this ever happens.

Besides, in your example you can say the much simpler *romuluS wo' 
Qaw'chu'ghach 'oHbe' ngoQmaj'e'*/Our goal is not the annihilation of the 
Romulan Empire./

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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