[tlhIngan Hol] law' puS with the -taHvIS and type-9 clauses preceding each element

[De'vID]

On Wed, 10 Feb 2021 at 11:38, Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:

> Perhaps a better translation for you would be, “The hottest fire is on
> someone else’s face.” Don’t try to logically figure out what {Hoch} is
> doing. It’s just the idiom Klingon uses to express a superlative.
>

Yes, but the issue is: what is the scope of the superlative? In {reH latlh
qabDaq qul tuj law' Hoch tuj puS}, if {latlh qabDaq} applies to the entire
comparison that follows (i.e., the superlative is within its scope), then
what the sentence says is "On someone else's face, the fire is the hottest
(hotter than anyone else on their face)." The intended meaning seems to be,
"The fire on someone else's face is the hottest (than everything, including
the fire on your face or my face)". That is, the {latlh qabDaq} seems to be
modifying not the entire comparison, but only the first part of it.
Compare this to {qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS}, where the
{qIbDaq SuvwI''e'} applies to the entire comparison.

It's a similar thing to {Qam[taH]vIS Hegh qaq law' tor[taH]vIS yIn qaq
puS}. The {Qam[taH]vIS} applies to the first half, and the {tor[taH]vIS}
applies to the second half. There seems to be some unexplained grammar that
allows the verb of quality in each half of the comparison to be modified
independently.

-- 
De'vID
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