tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 04 05:32:03 1995
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Transitivity
- From: "Lawrence M. Schoen" <lawrence>
- Subject: Re: Transitivity
- Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 08:32:03 -0400
[email protected] writes:
> This one should draw some comments!!!
>
> I have never seen anything quite like what I am about to say, but here goes.
>
> Perhaps Klingons do not think of Klingon language verbs as being transitive
> or intransitive at all. Transitivity is implied not by the verb roots
> themselves but by pronomial verb prefixes. Klingons can tell whether a verb
> has an object and use one set of prefixes or whether a verb does not have an
> object and use a different set of prefixes. The verb root itself never
> changes.
There is a certain appeal to this, both linguistically and aesthetically. While
I am not much of a proponent of anything more than a "soft" interpretation of
the linguistic relativity idea, I am willing to push the concept a bit further
for an artificial language belonging to a fictional culture than I would be for
a naturally occurring language with real speakers.
Consider though how well the notion of such verb stems fits the Klingon "feel."
It is certainly a good fit for converting to Clipped Klingon. No frills, no
"function words" (function affixes?), just the bare bones of what you need to
say.
One can easily see how Klingon developed from the "grunt grunt" theory of
language orgins (as opposed to the "bow-wow" theory or the "yo-heave-ho!"
theory), and that with such beginnings, you could retain a root grammar of
nothing but verbs, with nouns as a reluctant addition, and delegation of
anything else you might grudgingly add later as "everything else."
Of course, as speakers of a NOUN oriented language, we labor under our own
problems. That's what is important to us, and when we look at verbs it seems as
though it's only to ask how they impact on nouns (transitive? intransitive?),
like some of my students who don't care what they're leaning (or not) in class,
only whether it will be on the exam. It may well be, as some have suggested,
that the whole transitivity issue is really a non-issue from the Klingon point
of view. Some (including me) like this idea, but shy away from the extremes it
can produce. However, the fact that I have trouble getting good semantics out
of a sentence like <HoD vIQong> might simply be *my* problem, not Klingon's,
particularly when the closest thing which I can come up with already exists in
Klingon as <HoD vIQongmoH>.
No real answers here, just more questions. Maybe if I sleep on it some more...
Lawrence
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: Dr Lawrence M Schoen, Director :: The KLI is a nonprofit ::
:: The Klingon Language Institute :: tax exempt corporation ::
:: POB 634, Flourtown, PA 19031 USA :: DaH HuchlIj'e' ghonob ::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: [email protected] :: [email protected] ::: 215/836-4955 ::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::