tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 09 07:24:23 1996
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Re: story, part 2
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>Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 09:00:40 -0800
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>
>On Wed, 4 Dec 1996 14:11:35 -0800 "Mark E. Shoulson"
><[email protected]> wrote:
>..
>> I note that "listen" is transitive in English, and that's often at least
>> part of our criterion: looking at the nature of the gloss.
>
>"Listen" is intransitive in English. Look it up. I did. Concise
>Oxford Dictionary.
Yep. @duh. Brain fart. I was so fixated on "listening" implying
"listening to something" (which it really doesn't have to) that I got
myself confused. HIvqa' veqlargh (I don't usually use this simplest
replacement proverb, but it seems most appropriate here)
>
>> Also try
>> looking at it from the way Krankor presents the "transitive"/"intransitive"
>> argument. He's occasionally gotten annoyed and insisted that Klingon
>> didn't have a distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs.
>
>Ultimately, I have to disagree with this. When there is an
>explicit direct object and the verb prefix disagrees in person
>and number, the prefix, which usually indicates direct object,
>instead indicates indirect object. That is not written in TKD,
>but there are canon examples showing it. There are no canon
>examples I can recall which justify any other setting where what
>would be interpreted as an indirect object being used as a
>direct object. Krankor and I disagree on this, but he has no
>examples to show him right.
I don't think it's the direct/indirect object blurring that bugs him. I
think he just doesn't like the application of the linguistic terms to a
language that he believes may not follow normal rules. It's more that he
would argue that just because WE don't know what MIGHT fill the object
place of a given verb, that doesn't mean there CANNOT be anything that does
(leaving indirect-object usurpation of the direct-object place completely
aside). So, while we consider "Qong" intransitive, he might argue that
maybe it DOES take an object, if the speaker needs to be explicit about the
object, and the usual intransitive use of it is just like the intransitive
use of "Sop" for a generic object. So maybe the object of Qong is the time
slept ("sleep a night.") or the thing slept on ("sleep a bed") or who knows
what? And I'm not sure I can whole-heartedly disagree with him. Still,
the effect winds up pretty much the same.
>> And indeed I can agree with him for the most part,
>> though I tend to doubt that some verbs really have objects under pretty
>> much any circumstances. We've done related things, "deciding" that the
>> object of "jeS" is the activitty participated in, since "participate" is
>> semantically transitive in English, though syntactically its object is
>> governed by the preposition "in". (And I'm sure that some do not accept
>> this use of jeS, and I can't say they're wrong.)
>
>Count me among them. Otherwise, the object might be another
>person who participates "with", or a place one participates "at".
You have a firm standpoint (likely firmer than mine), but also consider.
Participation may or may not involve a "with" or an "at", but it MUST
involve an "in." There is *always* some activity or whatever that is what
you're participating "in"; without it, there's no concept of
participation. The same is not necessarily true of "with" and "at".
"Participate" in English is thus a semantically transitive verb, which must
take an "object," but due to accidents of syntax the object happens to be
always governed by the preposition "in," making it syntactically
intransitive. I'm thinking maybe Klingon doesn't have the weird accident
that happened in English to make "participate"'s object fall into a
prepositional phrase.
>I believe that just as we have a word that means "care for", we
>would have gotten "listen to" had Okrand intended {'Ij} to be
>transitive.
Perhaps. Though note that if Okrand decided that "'Ij" was transitive, it
would not change your interpretations of pretty much ANY sentence with 'Ij
in it one bit. The intransitive use of a transitive 'Ij is pretty much
identical to the use of an intransitive 'Ij. Which is good, in case he
comes down that way. Of course, if he chooses to say it's transitive, my
readings are in trouble (which makes intransitive usage the more
conservative approach and thus probably the one to be followed).
~mark
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