tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 27 10:22:30 1994
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Re: {-Daq} vs. {-vaD}: rehash
- From: [email protected] (Nick NICHOLAS)
- Subject: Re: {-Daq} vs. {-vaD}: rehash
- Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 12:19:16 +1000 (EST)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> from "d'Armond Speers" at Jun 27, 94 12:38:38 pm
Hu'tegh! nuq ja' d'Armond Speers jay'?
Holtej wonders about the 'beneficiary' status of -vaD vs. Daq. The phrasing
of TKD makes it obvious to me that Okrand is referring to the Case Grammar
specification of Beneficiary, which is in most respect equivalent to the
Dative of traditional grammarians; in fact, it indicates a person *adversely*
affected as much as a beneficiary (which is why we can say SoHvaD mu'qaD
vIjach). In that respect, 'to' *is* probably a better translation of -vaD
than 'for' after all. Beneficiary/ Location are well-distinguished in
Case Grammar frameworks, and I don't think setting up an animacy selectional
restriction would really clear matters up. I recommend you have a look at a
Case Grammar text; the topic should be covered in standard semantics texts,
although the approach has never been mainstream (in linguistics at least; I'm
sure Schank over in AI has ha a field day with it.)
=3. SoHvaD nuHmey vIngev
=What does this mean? Given the interpretation of (2) above, it could
=mean "I sell the weapons to you." But, and here's my point, you
=don't have to receive the object to be the beneficiary of the
=action. Consider the case where you're being held hostage, and
=your captors want (someone) to sell weapons to their army as ransom. So,
=the selling of the weapons is done for your benefit, but you don't
=receive the weapons: "I sell the weapons for you."
I have no problem at all with the Klingon being ambiguous between the
two interpretations.
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* Nick Nicholas, Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Australia *
[email protected]; [email protected]
* "Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the *
circumscriptional appelations are excised." --- W. Mann & S. Thompson,
* _Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organisation_, 1987. *
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