[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[qov at kli.org]

> 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.

It is my belief that to consider "a knife with an attached handle" as
anything other than something that looks vaguely like this:

OOOOO>>>>>>>>>>>

with the OOOs being hilt and the >>>s being blade is exactly equivalent to
considering that

{tajDaq ret'aq vIyach} could refer to standing on the knife while stroking
an unrelated handle.

That is, grammatically possible, but not a conclusion a reasonable reader
leaps to.  I too consider the other possible interpretations of tajDaq when
I write such a sentence, but am content that by giving the reader the
context that the handle stroking occurs to a handle and on a knife, that
they will presume it to be the handle of the knife that is stroked. They can
trust that if the stroker is seated on a giant prop knife stroking some
unrelated handle, that I will give them that information.  

For you, the need to ensure that it is the action of the sentence that takes
place at the specified location is so strong, that without a specified
action, the utterance is invalid.  I am willing to assume some action will
take place at the -Daq'ed location with the second noun as its object. I am
quite content to leave the discussion here. I have what I came for.

You're also correct that the sentence could be expressed as taj ret'aq
vIyach with no possibility of confusion. Such is the peril of trying to make
up ambiguous sentences.

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

I definitely didn't, because I have trouble even imagining what "the handle
of the on-the-knife" would be, and for me noun phrases end at the type-5.
It's just that for me if {X} is a valid Klingon utterance, then {YDaq X} is
too.  The wife of a captain I used to fly with used to assume that because I
say next to her husband all day, and slept in the same hotel as him, that I
was a threat to their marriage.  I was not noun-nouning that captain, and
neither is Y noun-nouning X. The type-5 is a wall that separates Y from the
rest of the sentence. It couldn't noun-noun X even if X wasn't a smelly,
chauvinistic bag of lard in which Y had no interest, plus Y is involved in a
committed relationship with the verb.

- Qov