[91030] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Loose Klingon
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Felix Malmenbeck)
Tue Nov 29 05:07:45 2011
From: Felix Malmenbeck <felixm@kth.se>
To: De'vID jonpIn <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com>, "tlhIngan-Hol@KLI.org"
<tlhIngan-Hol@KLI.org>
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:07:12 +0000
In-Reply-To: <F52986192E9FE346B0B7EF3D6F98E87711C06C16@EXDB3.ug.kth.se>
Errors-To: tlhingan-hol-bounces@stodi.digitalkingdom.org
Whoops; Ha=92DIbaHmey meQ Sop =91e=92 tIv tera=92nganpu=92 is from CK, not =
TKW.
Dop yImeQ QobDI' ghu'.
________________________________________
From: Felix Malmenbeck [felixm@kth.se]
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 10:54
To: De'vID jonpIn; tlhIngan-Hol@KLI.org
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Loose Klingon
Mixed use of So' is canon: nuqDaq So'taH yaS ("Where is the officer hiding@=
[TKD]), Duj So' ("He/She hides the ship" [KGT])
Transitive use of meQ:
to'waQ meQ vutwI' [KGT]
Adjectival:
Ha=92DIbaHmey meQ Sop =91e=92 tIv tera=92nganpu=92 [TKW]
________________________________________
From: De'vID jonpIn [de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 10:33
To: KLI
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Loose Klingon
jatlhpu' SuStel:
> The semantic roles of subjects and objects in Klingon seem to change
> all the time. I can {mev}, I can {mev} you, making you you {mev}.
tlhob De'vID, jatlh:
> Where has {mev} been used in the sense of {mevmoH}?
QeS 'utlh:
bIjatlh 'e' yImev. yItlhutlh!
Stop talking! Drink! (TKW p.87)
Interesting. Intuitively, when I scan the sentence I don't immediately thi=
nk of {mev} as taking {'e'} as the object here, but of course it actually i=
s. Instead, I see {yImev} "(you) stop!" and I understand it as a command=
to the listener, and only then does my brain attach the {bIjatlh 'e'} "...=
talking" part.
QeS 'utlh:
To be honest I don't see these verbs as that much of a problem. Lots of
languages have small and select groups of these kinds of "ambitransitive"
verbs. English, for instance: burn, break, drown, choke, scatter, fly,
boil, fry... Ubykh has them too, so they're not an English-only thing.
They're a little frustrating, but they're absolutely typical of natural
Terran languages and I'm not surprised to see a few such verbs appearing
in Klingon. Whether Marc's doing them deliberately or not is, of course,
another story, but I don't have a problem with them and I think there's
no reason for us to start wondering about the looseness of argument
structure of *all* Klingon verbs as a result.
Another one that I just thought of is {So'}. I'm pretty sure I've seen it =
used both transitively and intransitively, though I'm not sure if that was =
in canon. But I agree, I don't see a problem with a few words having this =
property, and there's no reason to believe that it generalises to other ver=
bs.
De'vID:
> I can't think of any examples where the semantic roles of subjects and
> objects have changed. We recently learned that {vergh} is transitive
> (someone docks something), when some people have assumed it was
> intransitive (the ship docks).
QeS 'utlh:
{meQ} "burn" is one, which we have attested with an object, with a non-
agent subject, and as an adjectival.
Can you list the canon examples? {meQtaHbogh qachDaq Suv qoH neH} has it w=
ith a subject, which canon sentences use it with an object or as an adjecti=
val?
--
De'vID
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