tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 20 09:38:03 1997
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Re: some tidbits qororvo'
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: some tidbits qororvo'
- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 12:38:03 -0500 (EST)
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]> (message from Ivan ADerzhanski on Thu, 20 Mar 1997 01:32:38 -0800 (PST))
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>Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 01:32:38 -0800 (PST)
>From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email protected]>
>
>Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>> >From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email protected]>
>
>> I think the fact that Klingon has -vIp at all does indicate a certain
>> bias towards viewing fear as something connected with active actions.
>> Or even a certain philosophical view of fear.
>
>Would necessity, willingness and readiness be subject to the same
>philosophical view then? They're all expressed by modal suffixes.
Yes, they would. Or rather, related philosophies, perhaps less profound.
You can't be willing without being willing to do SOMEthing, so it makes
sense as a suffix. Ditto readiness. The next, less certain step of
philosophy relies on the added implication which I see (and maybe others do
not) that "HaghvIp" means "he/she is afraid to laugh *and therefore
doesn't*". I don't see the same extension necessarily attaching to
willingness or readiness, (i.e. "he's willing to laugh", but may or may not
actually do it) but that's the only reason.
>> "HaghvIp" means "he/she is afraid to laugh," implying that [...]
>> he/she doesn't laugh.
>
>{HaghnIS}, {Haghqang} and {Haghrup} all carry the same implication.
>So it doesn't have to be the Klingons' dislike of fear that makes it
>special. And it is special in many Terran languages, too, because of
>the way the corresponding construction works: you say _be afraid to V_
>if the subject of _V_ is the fearer; otherwise you use a sentential
>complement (say, _be afraid that Y will/may V_). I suspect (though
>I'm not sure) that Hebrew uses the infinitive in the same-subject
>construction and a subordinate clause in the different-subject one.
>That's what Russian and Hungarian do, among others.
No arguments. I think this has to do with the less controversial aspect of
what I was saying: you can't be afraid without being afraid of doing
something, like you can't be ready without being ready to do something,
etc.
>Now Klingon has suffixes for many things that other languages express
>by separate words (and vice versa, of course). Yet I've never seen a
>Terran language with a suffix (or any sort of bound morpheme) for `be
>afraid of'. That's got to have some significance.
If nothing else, it makes the language a little more interesting.
~mark
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