On 11/29/2021 8:46 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
jIH:
{vIghro'-ghu} SuStel: In English, the hyphen used this way represents a genitive relationship SuStel: Oh, hunter-killer isn't genitive. That's a different kind of relationship. Initially, I couldn't understand when a noun-noun construction is to be interpreted as a genitive relationship, and when as something else. So I thought of the following:
When a noun-noun construction makes sense if one read it as "noun 2 of noun 1" then it represents a genitive relationship, but when reading it as "noun 2 of noun 1" doesn't make sense then it's something else.
So, the {vIghro' ghu} is genitive since it makes sense for it to be read as "baby of a cat", but the "hunter-killer" is something else since it makes no sense understanding it as "killer of the hunter".
Would you agree with this approach?
No. The Klingon noun-noun construction is always genitive. When one noun modifies the meaning of another noun, that's genitive. That's true whether you translate it "noun 2 of noun 1" or "noun 1's noun 2" or "noun 2 made of noun 1." What's important is that noun 1 is modifying the meaning of noun 2. That's what makes it a genitive relationship. The phrase /hunter-killer/ does not contain a genitive. /Hunter/ does not modify /killer,/ and /killer/ does not modify /hunter./ The entire phrase /hunter-killer/ is used genitively to modify the word /probe,/ but that's not important here. The phrase could also have been written /hunter/killer;/ the hyphen is not important to the meaning here. It's just a shortcut to saying /and./ The probe hunts and the probe kills. It does both these things, so we're going to stick the two words together a bit sloppily and call it a hunter-killer probe. That's all this means. *vIghro' ghu'* is a noun-noun construction, which means they're in a genitive relationship. It's a *ghu.* What kind of *ghu?* A *vIghro'* kind of *ghu.* It's a *Hol.* What kind of *Hol?* A *tlhIngan* kind of *Hol.* It's a *pegh.* What kind of *pegh?* A *nuH* kind of *pegh.* And so on. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name