[724] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: error?: 'have' used as verb auxiliary
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Apr 29 16:14:58 1993
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Captain Krankor <krankor@codex.prds.cdx.mot.com>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 14:37:25 -0400
>From A.APPLEYARD:
> But `ghaj` = "have" as "possess/hold legally or physically". "Eli has" here
>is short for "Eli has seen it": `leghpu' Eli`. Use of "have" as a verb
>auxiliary in Germanic languages (including English) arose from e.g. "I have a
>killed wolf" (habeo lupum occisum, targh HoHlu'bogh vighaj), via a "guilty
>till proved otherwise" assumption that the subject of "to have" did the action
>of the participle applied to the corpus-delictum mentioned in the sentence, to
>the present meaning of the perfect tense, "I have killed a wolf", long ago
>before the Anglo-Saxons brought early English to England.
That's all lovely but you are entirely wrong in your starting
premise. "Eli has" here is NOT short for "Eli has seen it".
In fact, "Eli has" is not even the correct translation for ghaj Eli.
The original sentence was:
ghaj Eli; tugh mabejqa'nIS
First off, the criticism about the suffix order being wrong is
completely valid. It should be:
ghaj Eli; tugh mabejnISqa'
However, this doesn't effect the ghaj Eli part. It's not "Eli has
[seen it]", it's "Eli has it." Actual physical possession, just as
ghaj is supposed to be. It's the old 0 prefix, for
he-she-it/him-her-it. Eli, in fact, does own this film as part of
his permanent collection, and we've been talking about giving it
another spin (it took second place in voting among guests at a
gathering at his home recently, narrowly losing out to "This is
Spinal Tap")
--Krankor
