A terminological note: A compound sentence (in English) is one consisting of two or more independent clauses joined by a conjunction. A complex sentence has an independent clause and a dependent one. Compound-complex sentences have both. lay'tel SIvten On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 12:12 PM, ghunchu'wI' 'utlh <qunchuy@alcaco.net> wrote:
On Jun 9, 2017, at 3:03 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
For instance, Captain Klaa's utterance *reH DIvI' Duj vISuv vIneH* *I've always wanted to fight a Federation ship* becomes perfectly reasonable without any special grammatical exceptions if we simply look at it as *reH [DIvI' Duj vISuv vIneH],* where the brackets delineate a sentence, not just a "construction."
It is already an exception, as {neH} does not use the object {'e'}. It has occasionally been suggested that the "previous sentence" is the actual object of {neH}. I think that is no more of a stretch than what you propose.
I do see the distinction between generalizing and making exceptions. I'm just not sure it is worth generalizing "all SAO constructions are sentences" in order to handle the Klaa example, when a small codicil on {neH} works to explain both the placement of {reH} and the lack of {'e'}.
I think it is uncontroversial to call complex sentences made with conjunctions "sentences". Do we have any examples of such sentences where an adverbial or subordinate clause applies to the entire thing, or do they attach to only one main verb? The comparison isn't perfectly applicable to a SAO, but it could be instructive.
-- ghunchu'wI'
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