[tlhIngan Hol] using {ngan} as a suffix {ngan} as the suffix {-ngan}

[De'vID]

On Thu, 27 Jan 2022 at 02:40, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq at protonmail.com> wrote:

> SuStel:
>
> A noun-noun construction is a combination of nouns that are not a compound
> noun, not a complex noun, and may or may not be lexicalized.
>
>
> But what is the concrete difference between a compound noun and a
> noun-noun construction?
>

I already answered this question in my previous email, which I was about to
send when you sent this one.


> Imagine that instead of *'Iw HIq *we had *'IwHIq *and instead of *ropyaH*
> we had *rop yaH*. How would the language be different? Would these words
> have different a usage, meaning, grammar or pronunciation? Would something
> else be different, and if so, what? What is the justification to have a
> distinction between these two ways to form similar word combinations?
>

I've addressed usage and meaning, and grammatically I've pointed out that
the first noun in a noun-noun construction can take a suffix, but the first
component of a compound noun cannot. I think {rop yaH} means something very
different from {ropyaH}. If I told someone to go to {roplIj yaH}, I might
be telling them to go to a leper colony and not an infirmary.

But you raised the point of pronunciation, and I think there's a difference
there, too. Okrand wrote that the pronunciation of {wab Do} "speed of
sound" and {wabDo} "Mach number" are the same. But I think that the
*stress* is different. In {wab Do}, both words have equal stress. In
{wabDo}, the {Do} is stressed and the {wab} is not. In {tera'ngan}, the
{ra'} is stressed but not the {ngan}. In {tera' ngan}, both the {ra'} and
{ngan} are stressed. So the presence or absence of a space serves a
purpose, which is to reflect the stress in speaking.

-- 
De'vID
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