tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 06 19:48:32 1994
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Re: Adjectives and vIH
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Adjectives and vIH
- Date: Mon, 7 Mar 94 08:46:40 EST
On Mar 4, 1:22pm, "d'Armond Speers" wrote:
> Subject: Adjectives and vIH
>
>
> With regards to the discussion concerning adjectives & vIH:
>
> We've all read the quote from TKD p. 78-79, but so far noone's
> mentioned an equally-relevant quote, from p. 49:
>
> "A verb expressing a state or quality..."
>
> It seems to me that vIH does indeed express a state, the state
> of being in motion, and as such can be used in this way. It's
> not the inclusing of the English "to be" in the definition,
> but the thematic nature of the verb itself.
>
> I must admit I haven't kept up with all the discussion, and this info
> may not even be relevant, but I thought I'd throw it out to the
> masses, to do with what you will.
>
> Holtej
My problem with this is that Okrand shows very little evidence that he
considered very much the potential of there being verbs which express a state
that do NOT include "to be" in their English definition. In fact, the word
you have chosen HAS "to be" in its definition. That's the reason I have felt
that it SHOULD be considered to be adjectivally useful.
Upon later review, I feel less certain because, while it does fit the
general pattern on the English-Klingon side for the dozens of other "to be -
adjective" verbs, it does NOT fit the pattern on the Klingon-English side. If
it fit THAT pattern, then the Klingon-English side would merely say, "be in
motion", instead of "move, be in motion", as it does.
Mostly, it looks like a lapse in attention on Okrand's part that this is
not more clearly put forward. I've resolved for myself that {vIH} and the
half dozen other words that fit ITS pattern are not so essential that I need
to stretch its use beyond that which is quite clear in the case of the other
"to be" verbs. It is simply not necessary, and given that, I feel little need
to make this particular case to push its word use beyond that which is
clearly put forward in TKD.
There are dozens of words (several pages in the word list I am compiling
for my own use) which clearly fit the "to be" pattern expressed in pages
78-79. There are so many of them that I find it hard to believe that this
format is not significant. Why is this pattern so different from other verbs,
yet so consistent among the verbs following this pattern if it were not an
intentional line being drawn between verbs that can be used adjectivally and
those which cannot?
As I compile my list, I do what he did not do, which is to list these
verbs both by their adjective (as he does) and also lead by "be", so that
{bIr} is listed alphabetically both under "cold" and also under "be cold".
This way, I'll have all the adjectival verbs in one place for easy scanning
when I want to know what adjectives are available for my use. I wish TKD were
organized like that.
charghwI'