[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[SuStel]

On 2/10/2016 8:00 PM, qov at kli.org wrote:
> Picture a knife.  It has an attached handle. Picture a finger. It runs
> gentle along the length of the handle, stops, and then goes back and does it
> again. That's what it's supposed to mean.
>
> Does {tajDaq ret'aq vIyach} describe this? If not, how would you describe
> it?

I believe I have already answered that:

>> {tajDaq ret'aq vIyach} depends. If it's supposed to mean "I stroke
>> the handle; the stroking happens on the knife," then it's fine. If
>> it's supposed to mean "I stroke the handle, which is on the knife"
>> then it doesn't say what it's supposed to mean. As usual with the
>> latter, it could simply be said as {taj ret'aq vIyach} and it'd be
>> uncontroversial.

You say to picture a knife with an attached handle. At no point in your 
sentence is there mention of a knife-handle, only a knife and a 
grammatically unrelated handle. It COULD be a knife-handle. I can also 
picture myself standing on a knife while stroking a bat'leth handle and 
it would fit the sentence. All we know is there is SOME kind of handle, 
and it is stroked in the location of the knife. Since there can be no 
genitive relationship between the knife and the handle, the sentence 
CANNOT be expressing that there is a handle is attached to the knife. It 
may be, but it's not expressed in that sentence.

But it sure LOOKS like you tried to express that in the sentence, by 
ignoring the no-type-5 rule.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name