On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 1:07 PM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
I mean, if you can just imagine a pronoun that can act as subject of the second sentence and represent the first sentence, why not just imagine a pronoun acting as object of the second sentence that represents the first sentence? Poof! No need for {‘e’} or {net}. Any sentence can just be invisibly represented by any unstated pronoun acting as subject or object in the following sentence.
You can already do that. For example, TKD: *vIta'pu'be'.* *I didn't do it.* There's also this dialogue from ST6: https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2006/May/msg00201.html
Chang: narghta'? narghta'. ([They have] Escaped.) Grokh: qay'be'. Daq SovlaHbe'taH qIrq. (Kirk cannot know the location of the peace conference.) {It does not matter ... Kirk cannot know the location.} Chang: DaSovbej'a'? bISuDrup'a'? (Are you sure? Will you take that chance?) {Are you sure [of that]? ... Are you willing to take that chance?}
*DaSovbej'a' *has an unstated pronoun as object, referring to Grokh's sentence. (Grokh's sentence also uses *qay'be'*, with an unstated subject referring to Chang's earlier statement that Kirk and Spock had escaped.) Leaving out *'e'* might cause confusion if there's something else in the context that might also work as a third-person subject, and the two sentences may feel less connected into a single thought, but it's not the end of the world if you leave it out. So, I repeat, it is not ungrammatical. It is merely hideous. You can’t rely
on your reader/listener to consistently realize, “OH, I GET IT. THAT UNSTATED SUBJECT OF THE SECOND VERB REPRESTENTS THE ENTIRE PREVIOUS SENTENCE. WHAT A GREAT IDEA? WHY DIDN’T OKRAND THINK OF THAT?
He did think of that, at least four times. I mentioned them in my earlier posts. I assume the reason he did not spell this out formally is because he didn't think he needed to explain to his audience how to use "it".