tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 30 07:41:09 1995

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Re: bIjatlh 'e' yImev

According to Mark E. Shoulson:
> 
> >Date: Thu, 27 Apr 1995 19:04:26 -0400
> >Originator: [email protected]
> >From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
> 
> >According to [email protected]:
... 
> >> <moQ luQuj matlh mara je 'e' jeS worgh>
...
> >My problem with this attempt is the word choice {jeS}, which
> >means "participate", not "participate in". It strikes me as a
> >rather intransitive verb. Your sentence literally translates
> >into the two sentences:
> 
> >"Maltz and Mara play ball. Worf participates that."
> 
> >See? Doesn't that sound rather awkward? ...
> 
> Um.... actually, I think I agree with WestphalWz here.  While it's true
> that 'e' is an object pronoun, we mustn't assume that objects in Klingon
> exactly correspond to objects in English.  "Participate" in English is, in
> a very real sense, a transitive verb.  It's just that it's object is always
> governed by the preposition "in" (you participate in
> something)...

I agree here. While I am tempted to make the same extention to
the definition supplied in TKD, the examples you are about to
present are actually the foundation of my reason to reject this
interpretation until Okrand makes his explicit ruling on this.

> We
> already have evidence that Klingon is willing to play fast and loose with
> interpreting its objects as various other tenses (the verb Da, and also the
> usage of ghoS with no locative, 

My problem with this is that the definition of {Da} explicitly
includes the prepositional phrase. {ghoS} has an explicit
description of its use. Seeing this trend of explicity
including implied prepositions within the definition of verbs
with no explicit rules for extending this trend to other verbs
leads me to conservatively presume that I cannot do what you
are positing that we SHOULD do.

I don't feel like I can use {jaH} the same way that I can use
{ghoS}. Am I wrong in this? Perhaps I am. I don't like Okrand's
vague reference to this trait only belonging to "a few verbs"
without really describing which ones better than he does.
Perhaps {jaH} does imply locative notions. Hmm. This would
change things. Perhaps this is good.

Anyway, {Da} does explicitly say "behave in the manner of". It
does not just say, "behave", leaving us to add the
prepositional sense to it with our wide interpretation of what
qualifies as an object. Why do this for {Da} without doing it
for {jeS}?

I really wish Okrand would speak up on this one. If he wanted
all verbs to globally be used both transitively and
intransitively, he should have simply said so. He could have
said, "Klingon does not contain the sense of transitivity vs.
intransitivity contained in most other languages." Instead, he
just omitted the entire topic, just as he has omitted the part
of speech reference to all of the extra-TKD words that he has
given us. I'm tempted to think Okrand is simply sloppy on this
one.

> or the "ro'qegh 'Iwchab HInob" sentence,
> where HI-, a direct object marker, instead points to the -vaD object).  

I'm not wild about making broad generalizations on this one.
Otherwise, we can simply say {tlhIngan Hol maja'chuq} and
justify it because the prefix follows the rule for {-chuq}
while the position of {tlhIngan Hol} makes it clear that it is
the object of {ja'}. Tada! All that stress we've had in all the
discussions on this example has apparently been wasted. We can
just make our global generalization from this pattern and run
with it.

Do you feel comfortable with that?

I'd rather have Okrand give us less need to guess his intent.

> The
> "object" of "jeS", if I can be permitted to use intuition, is unlikely to
> be understood to be anything else than the activity participated in.

I'll be happy to accept this when it comes from Okrand, and
quite leery of it until then, unless someone presents a more
convincing argument. Sorry. Maybe I'm just being thick skulled
on this, but I'm not yet convinced.

> This is a major point of Krankor's objection to classifiying Klingon verbs
> as transitive and intransitive.  He maintains that lots of verbs (all?) can
> take objects... it's just not necessarily clear what the object of "Qong"
> would be.  But it could be something (maybe the thing you lie on when you
> sleep, so you can sleep a bed).  I don't know that I agree with the extent
> to which Krankor takes this, but much of his point is valid.

This is EXACTLY why I don't make this kind of generalization.
Where do you draw the line when there are no guidelines on
where the line is to be drawn?

> >> <-taH> is
> >> used several times in the <-ghach> construction examples...
> 
> Notably, -taH is used in -ghach constructions ONLY by people other than
> Okrand, desparate to make nouns of simple verbs...  

Let's not forget the interview with Okrand in HolQeD where he
explained about the use of {-ghach}. He did address how {-taH}
would be interpreted in combination with {-ghach}. While it is
true that others dove at {-taH} with a
not-altogether-justifiable zeal, at least we now know how it
would be interpreted if it DOES show up in canon. I consider
the interview to be NEARLY canon, at LEAST.

> It is not a meaningless
> suffix, and was proposed for this use by Glen Proechel, probably modeling
> it after an analogous Esperanto process.  This doesn't mean it's bad, but
> it shouldn't be applied blindly.  The *only* cannon use of -ghach is with
> the -Ha' suffix: naDHa'ghach.

Excluding the interview, of course...

> ~mark

Anyway, I am open to hearing more on this. Perhaps I'm wrong
and am just stubbornly clinging to a misinterpretation of this
aspect of the language. I was mostly right about {-ghach} and
mostly right about {law/puS} as I guessed as to what Okrand
would ultimately choose to endorse, but I stupidly clung to a
misunderstanding on adjectival verbs for a long time and I'm
sure I've been wrong on others and will be wrong many more
times.

charghwI'
-- 

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