tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 08 11:48:36 1996

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RE: KLBC Rules... Transitive vs Intransitive

ja'pu' SuStel:
>English tends to allow almost anything to be
>used transitively or intransitively, but that's no reason to assume that
>Klingon can, too.

ja' qeyloS:
>I agree that's no reason to assume that Klingon can, but I don't understand
>the reason we assume that Klingon can't??????????????

There's one simple reason we assume Klingon does *not* in general blur the
difference between, for example, "drop/fall down" and "drop/let fall".  We
have a verb suffix {-moH} that lets you specify which one you mean, with
examples in the lexicon of things *not* being used both ways.  In English,
the verb "awaken" can mean either "become awake" or "make someone awake".
In tlhIngan Hol, the two concepts are {vem} and {vemmoH}.

Does {Dub} mean "make better" or "become better"?  We now know it means the
former, and to say the latter one probably ought to use {Dub'egh}.  But the
words {ghor} and {tet} and {ngoS} are still ambiguous.  We appear to have
contradictory information about {tagh}; maybe it's one of a few that *do*
work both ways.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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