tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 18 06:38:17 1995
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While kinda KLBC, it referred to stuff I wrote, so...
According to [email protected]:
...
> chaq ram Dochvam (in all likelihood a matter of idiomatic usage),
> 'ach _lojba_ngan jIHmo' reH 'oH rurbogh Dochmey vIqIm:
>
> if (1a) means (1b), shouldn't (2a) mean (2b)?
>
> (1) a. _bIrop 'e' vIlaD._
> b. `I read (a report saying) that you were ill.'
> (2) a. _<<jIrop>> bIghItlh 'e' vIlaD._
> b. ?`I read (a report saying) that you wrote that you were ill.'
Nothing much to argue with here.
> It seems that (2a) introduces a superfluous level of indirection,
> since what he read was your message itself, not a report that you
> had written it.
While this may be true, I see it as a small infraction, common
in common speech. In other words, I think it is perhaps not the
BEST option, but I also do not think it so wrong that it
requires correction.
> My entry:
>
> (3) _<<jIrop>> bIghItlhbogh vIlaD._
> `I read the "I am ill" that you wrote.'
Make that {DaghItlhbogh}... Still, this is a very unusual
construction. I've never seen the likes of it in Klingon. You
are treating the quoted word as the object of {vIlaD}. This is
essentially the way Klingon handles verbs of speech, but I'm
not sure that {laD} qualifies for this treatment. I'm also not
sure that we can point two different verbs at the same
quotation like this.
For that matter, we may be pushing the use of {ghItlh} as a
verb of speech. Okrand explained in an interview in HolQeD that
{ghItlh} refers to the act of making marks on a page, not to
the act of composition. If we want to be nit-pickers, we'd
probably have done better to say:
<<jIrop>> jatlhbogh jabbI'IDlIj vIlI'pu'.
...
> Talking of _lo'laH(be')_:
>
> _lo'_ is `use', so _lo'laH_ is `be able to use', isn't it? But
> `be useful' doesn't mean `be able to use', it means `be able to
> be used'.
All languages have irregularities. I'm sure that this is why
{lo'laH} is listed in TKD at all, since its meaning is
different from what would be expected by the mere assemblage of
its parts.
> We get something like this:
>
> _vIlo'_ `I use it'
> _vIlo'laH_ `I can use it'
>
> _vIlo'lu'_ `someone uses me'
> _jIlo'laH_ `someone can use me', `I am usable/useful'
Interesting, but I don't see this as a logical progression. The
last two steps don't follow from one another, unless you imply
that there is still a {-lu'} in there, hidden by the {-laH}. I
doubt you'll get much agreement to this proposal.
> Not much symmetry in the Klingon forms, but I suppose that's the way
> around the incompatibility of _-lu'_ and _-laH_. The question is,
> then, whether _-laH_ generally absorbs _-lu'_ (and _V-laH_ means `be
> Vable' for any verb V) or _lo'laH_ is an idiosyncratic case and is
> listed in tKD because of that.
I think you are making far too much of a generalization from a
single, probably exceptional case.
> (Will that do to open a can of qagh, I wonder? :-))
I doubt it will do much.
> --'Iwvan (HISlaH, tlhIngan pongwIj 'oH pongvam'e')
maj.
charghwI'
--
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