[536] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: De-verbal nouns
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon Apr 12 00:35:03 1993
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Ken_Beesley.PARC@xerox.com
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1993 20:47:37 PDT
In-Reply-To: "krankor@codex.prds.cdx.mot:com:Xerox's message of Sat, 10 Apr 199
Krankor:
>>the presence of the info we *are* given,
(that many verbs can be used as nouns, but it is unknown if all can) certainly
seems like license to try. <<
It's much easier to argue the other way: that where the rules are still
unknown, we should avoid speculation. To a linguist, the challenge (the
"trying" that is justified) is to get the lexicon and rules cleaned up.
Normally, one would present tentative examples to a native speaker and see if
they are accepted or rejected. As long as Okrand monopolizes the informant, we
have to ask him for official additions to, or completely new versions of, the
lexicon. He may conclude, if all of his tentative V->N examples are accepted,
that there is a general rule allowing all verbal roots to be used as nominal
roots. Lacking such new information, every use of a verbal root as a noun root
is an unsubstantiated modification of the language as described.
Krankor himself has been (quite rightly) very critical of unauthorized
modifications and additions to the language. If I may quote from his message
of 23 January: "I simply feel
it's essential that we all stick to the rules as much as possible so
that we all are speaking the same language. Eventually, it *will* have
to change and grow (in fact, we wait eagerly for every little drip of
growth Okrand provides us), but first we need to get people fluent with
what we have. ...
I have had personal
experience with trying to communicate with folx who took it upon themselves
to modify the language to their liking, and I couldn't understand them
for squat. I'm very interested in not seeing that become widespread."
Krankor was talking about morphological and syntactic rules, but each lexicon
entry is also a rule or statement of fact about the language, telling us how we
can use that root. When we use a verb root as a noun root, we should not be
surprised if other Klingonists cannot understand us for squat.
Krankor:
>>>While it would not be surprising if we ultimately learned that some
nouns-from-verbs were nontransparent and idiosyncratic, at present I
do not believe that we have any examples of idiosyncratic ones. To my
knowledge, all defined (i.e. explicitly in the dictionary) examples of
noun/verb pairs are the obvious pairings one would expect. This observation
is at the core of the guidelines I presented earlier. Can anyone find any
counter-examples? Until we find such, I think we have to proceed on the
assumption that they will behave regularly.<<<
Well, you asked for it. Let's look at some examples, starting innocently at
the beginning of the main wordlist:
bach shoot(v)
bach shot
Here the noun appears to denote a physical occurrence of the verbal notion: a
shot. More or less "an act of shooting." The nominal form could just as well
be the more abstract "shooting," "marksmanship," "bombardment," etc.
bel be pleased(v)
bel pleasure(n)
Here the noun seems to denote the abstract quality experienced by one to whom
the verb can be applied. bel (n) could have meant something more concrete
like "a pleasant experience," or perhaps a more abstract "experience of
pleasure."
boQ assist(v)
boQ aide(n)
Here the noun seems to denote a person or something that does the assisting
(agentive nominalization). Why does this noun boQ exist when presumably we
have boQwI' (one who assists)? Why not an act of assistance (like "an assist"
in basketball) or abstract "assistance"?
buv classify(v)
buv classification(n)
Here the noun might be a concrete act of classification ("she revised the
genetic classification of bark beetles") or more generic ("classification" is a
fine art). Why not "classifier" (one who classifies) on the model of boQ? Why
doesn't bach mean "shoot-er"? Why doesn't bel (n) mean one-who-gives-pleasure?
So in going from verbs to nouns we have concrete acts or occurrences, abstract
qualities, concrete or abstract, even agentives that would appear to be quite
unnecessary (boQ). There seems to be no way to predict which way such a
particular V->N nominalization, even when it is known to exist, will go. And
that, folks, is a textbook example of idiosyncratic semantic relationships,
absolutely typical of derivational morphology.
Ken Beesley
