tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 27 03:35:03 1994
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Re: Duj pIm
Hu'tegh! nuq ja' [email protected] jay'?
=nIchyon jangbogh charghwI' jang ghuy'Do wa''e':
=Speaking of grammaticalization, the German {bitte} comes from the first
=person singular of the verb for "request, plead". It is in modern German a
=simple adverbial particle, whereas it used to be a whole phrase {ich bitte
=Sie} "I beg you", which became so common within sentences that it is now an
=adverbial.
Yup, that's grammaticalisation alright. The problem with (or advantage of!)
grammaticalisation is, once you see it one place, you'll see it everywhere.
One more example, which is relevant to something you were saying earlier.
"I think that he is boring" corresponds in structure to "Dal ghah 'e' vIHar";
"that he is boring" is the object of "I think". Now, what's happening in
"He is, I think, boring"? "He is boring" isn't the object of anything. In
fact, "I think" is starting to become a particle --- the structure of the
sentence is actually closer to "Dallaw' ghaH", with "I think" corresponding
to -law'.
Which means that English does have an (incipient) structural equivalent for
-law', which has come about as a grammaticalisation (verb -> particle).
=We're observing some very interesting phenomena here indeed. It's only a
=matter of time before a true Klingon stylistic form develops, as it already
=has to some degree with these 'decisions', which is just how natural
=languages develop their own stylistics, albeit unconsciously. It's all
=according to popular conventions and what the language structure best
=supports.
As far as I'm concerned, we have our Klingon stylistics. Whether *I*'ve
grokked them yet, I'm not sure; but then, I'm not making life easy for myself
by doing verse Hamlet. (Must admit though; I like what Guido's come up with
so far.)
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Nick Nicholas. Linguistics, University of Melbourne. [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected]
AND MOVING SOON TO: [email protected]