[Tlhingan-hol] nuq bop bom: 'ay' cha'vatlh wa'maH Hut: Hurgh wa' Dop - chIS latlh

[ghunchu'wI' 'utlh]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 12:31 AM, Robyn Stewart <robyn at flyingstart.ca> wrote:
>>> "Ha', reghovmeH Ha'qujrajDaq veDDIrvam 'ay' tItuQ."
>>
>> ...After the {Ha'} it was only four words, but two
>> of them have polysyllabic nouns and one of them has an uncommon verb
>> prefix. The plural-ness indicated by the prefix immediately overrode
>> my default expectation of singular-ness, and I understood the meaning
>> without problem. It was just going back over it to convince myself
>> that it actually said what I understood that took me a couple more
>> tries to sort out all the implicit details.
>
> Do you think it would be improved by adding more syllables to the nouns, in
> the form of explicit plurals?

So far as I can tell after all this attempted analysis of my reading
process, a plural suffix on {'ay'} would probably have helped. That's
a surprising conclusion for me to come to, as the word is immediately
followed by the verb prefix which calls it out as plural anyway. I
think I see another spot where my brain might have gotten a little off
track. {veDDIrvam 'ay'} didn't stick together well enough when I read
it at first, and I had a bit of "wear this pelt" context in the
background when I hit the end of the sentence. {'ay'} does kind of get
overwhelmed by the surrounding words, and it was an extra moment or
two before it sank in.

It's all irrelevant introspection at this point. I *did* understand it
when I read it. The only problem was that I had a feeling that I had
understood it despite faulty grammar.

>> I actually "got it" right away (ignoring the brief moment of
>> indecision just as I read the {tI-} prefix). I just took a while to
>> make sure that "it" was both what was intended *and* actually  what
>> was written. This is a high-grade-level sentence.
>
> That doesn't really describe vajar. He doesn't like reading much. But given
> the number of mistakes I make, it's fair that you stopped to ask, "what did
> she screw up this time?" before figuring it out.

I didn't mean that it is a complex sentence, or that it was produced
by heavy thinking. I was referring to the combination of implied
plurals, relatively rare affixes, and polysyllabic vocabulary words.
It's easy enough to say, and to understand. It was just unexpectedly
challenging for me to *analyze* it.

-- ghunchu'wI'