On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 11:32, Lieven L. Litaer <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
Am 26.02.2019 um 10:35 schrieb De'vID:>
The sentence used to introduce this restriction in TKD is: {yaS qIppu' 'e' vIlegh}.
This sentence didn't appear in Star Trek III, but was something with this grammar actually spoken in the movie which forced Okrand to make this restriction?
Yes: {qama'pu' jonta' neH}
In the first version, it was meant to say "I told you: only the engine". The new subtitles of the movie changed to "I wanted to take prisoners". Okrand had to backfit the sentence structure, but the suffix {-ta'} was on the first verb instead of the second one. So, the rule was set: the second verb does not take the aspect suffix.
NB: this is not confirmed, but I think it's obvious.
Oh, of course, the one sentence that literally explains most of the weird arbitrary decisions made in TKD. Why wasn't it the first thing I thought of? -- De'vID