[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[David Holt]

My own view of this, for what it's worth among a group of speakers more skilled than I...

jatlh SuStel:

>On 2/11/2016 10:05 AM, lojmIttI'wI'nuv wrote:
>> Placing two nouns next to each other does not make them a genitive pair.
>
> No, but placing two nouns next to each other, in which the first noun
> modifies the meaning of the second noun, DOES make them a genitive pair.

Unless and until Dr. Okrand fills us in on exactly what his intent was (assuming he remembers) we cannot know for sure.  I will admit that one of the possibilities is that he forgot about the rule of no type-5 suffixes on the first noun of a noun-noun and did indeed intend it to be genitive at that moment.  It seems a little odd to me that he wouldn't use the simpler and more straightforward genitive of {tel wovmoHwI'mey}.  However, it wouldn't be the first time he had accidentally broken one of the rules he created.  Thus, I agree that you are not crazy to think that this might be an error in canon.

Fortunately we have a way to interpret it as still fitting within the rules.  It is not so outrageous to consider the first noun to be a location and thus discount this phrase as a noun-noun construction.  The meaning does not change significantly from the genitive meaning and still fits the rules.  Regardless of the original intent or any of the rule-breaking ways we might read this, there is a rule-following way to read this that makes sense (even if it does perhaps seem a little odd).  I think I will join the chorus following this path.

Jeremy