[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[Alan Anderson]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 12:08 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> I'm rather amazed at the gymnastics everyone is going through to avoid
> admitting the phrase violates the rule. It might be an error or it might be
> an exception, but I still see no way it can legitimately be said to follow
> the rule.

It *doesn't* follow the rule. I don't think anyone believes it does.
That isn't the same as saying it *breaks* the rule, though.

The rule under consideration is in TKD section 3.4. The noun-noun construction:
> ...When the noun-noun construction is used, only the second
> noun can take syntactic suffixes (Type 5).

There are two main camps here. One says that the chapter title
violates the rule permitting Type 5 suffixes on only the second noun,
and is thus an error. The other camp says the example isn't a
noun-noun, and thus the rule does not apply. Both camps' arguments
rest on circular logic, so neither can prove the other wrong. "You
can't do that with a noun-noun. It does that, so it's wrong." "No, you
can't do that with a noun-noun. It does that, so it can't be one."

I'm in the camp that interprets the example in a way that doesn't
violate a rule. I have exactly zero trouble interpreting the first
noun as a locative and the second noun as...well, a noun. I don't see
{QamchIyDaq} as a restriction on which {'uQ'a'} is being labeled. If
there were many feasts, each with its specific location, then perhaps
that would be a natural reading of the intent, but this isn't a
specific "feast which is eaten at Qam-Chee". It's the feast, and it's
at Qam-Chee.

In my view, the example fails to follow the rule in exactly the same
way that {tIjwI'ghom vIchenmoH} fails to follow the rule requiring
{-taH} when {-vIS} is used. It fails to follow the rule the way
{bIghHa'Daq ghaHtaH qama''e'} fails to follow the rule against putting
aspect suffixes on the second verb of a Sentence As Object. But it
doesn't break the rule in the way {choHot paq} breaks the rule of
{rom}.

-- ghunchu'wI'