[tlhIngan Hol] placement of adverb

[SuStel]

On 4/13/2023 3:49 AM, Lieven L. Litaer via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:
> I just noticed that a meaning of a sentence can change depending on
> where an adverb is placed. I'm not sure if there is a rule forbidding,
> or if there are even examples for that.
>
> See this:
>    {not bIQong 'e' vISov.}
>    "I know that you never sleep"
> vs.
>    {bIQong not 'e' vISov.}
>    "I never knew that you sleep."
>
> Can I do that?
>
> TKD 6.7 (add) says that "the adverbial precedes the object-verb-noun
> construction". In the above example, {'e'} is the object of the verb
> {Sov}, so I think it's correct. – Or did I forget something?
>
> I somehow feel there is a canon example for this (x not 'e'), but I just
> can't remember.

There is, but we didn't get it until /paq'batlh./

We had long ago worked out that the *'e' reH* SkyBox example was 
problematical. We simply reasoned it out: if *'e'* is always the object, 
and if adverbials come before the object, then when modifying a verb 
whose object is *'e',* the adverbial should come before the *'e'.* And 
since *'e'* is only ever used in sentence-as-object constructions, that 
means that the correct form, at least according to all the rules we've 
been given, is *S1 A 'e' V2,* where S1 is the first sentence, A is the 
adverbial, and V2 is the verb of the second sentence.

Then we got the SkyBox example, and that didn't conform to our idea. But 
that sentence has other grammatical errors as well. I believe that when 
Okrand wrote the SkyBox example, this was when he was still not very 
practiced at translating into Klingon, and he was making a common newbie 
mistake: he was thinking of *'e'* as a conjunction between two 
sentences, must the way that /that/ is the corresponding conjunction in 
English. He was imagining *S1 'e' S2.* And if you imagine *'e'* as a 
conjunction, naturally you're going to imagine the adverbial of S2 is 
part of S2.

We also had *reH DIvI' Duj vISuv vIneH* from /Star Trek V,/ and this is 
even more problematical, since it /looks/ like it's saying /I wanted I 
fight a Federation ship forever: /that is, the /forever/ is modifying 
the fighting, not the wanting. Either that, or the adverbial is being 
applied to the sentence-as-construction as a whole: *A (S1 S2).* And of 
course, it's a *neH* sentence-as-object construction: without an *'e',* 
does that change the rules? Are they special with regard to adverbials?

So we had no clear canonical example, and we only had the logic of the 
rules. Then we got /paq'batlh,/ and I /think/ that's when we got our 
first unambiguous examples.

*SuvwI' DameH puqloDwI'
     vIghojHa'moH DaH 'e' vItlhoj
     bIQ lungaS 'aDDu'Daj*

/I see now, I have failed
     To raise my son a man.
     Water flows through his veins./

The *DaH* is definitely meant to modify *tlhoj.*

We also have examples in /paq'batlh/ of adverbials that are definitely 
meant to modify the first verb:

*tugh Hegh 'e' Sov moratlh
*/Morath felt the end was near./

The *tugh* is certainly meant to modify *Hegh.*

So we do have canonical examples of *S1 A 'e' V2,* but we didn't have 
them until much later than you were thinking.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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