tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 28 22:40:45 1998
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Re: Much ado
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Much ado
- Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 23:49:21 -0400
From: Terrence Donnelly <[email protected]>
>At 01:55 PM 4/28/98 -0700, SuStel wrote:
>>From: Dr. Lawrence M. Schoen <[email protected]>
>>
>>>All I can say is, "yItuv."
>>
>>You mean, {yItuv'eghmoH}.
>
>I see what you are driving at: "cause someone to be patient and have
>that someone be yourself", but is this necessary? I think you are
>implying that an imperative prefix can't command someone to take on a
>quality, but I don't see the problem. We do have the canon {petaD},
>which does exactly that: commands the listeners to take on a state.
>Are there any other canon examples of imperatives with descriptive
>verbs?
There's an explicit description of when this happens. KGT p. 117.
<<
{yItaD!} or {petaD} ("Be frozen!")
These are idiomatic ways to give the command "Don't move!" The word {yItaD}
is used when speaking to an individual; {petaD} is used when giving the
command to a group. The verb {taD} means "be frozen," and it is used here
in a peculiar, though not really ungrammatical, way. Generally, when a verb
describing a state of being (for example, {tIj} ["be hot"]) is used in the
imperative form, the suffixes {-'egh} (reflexive suffix) and {-moH}
("cause") are used as well: {yItuj'eghmoH} ("Heat yourself"—that is, "Cause
yourself to be hot!"), {yItaD'eghmoH!} ("Freeze yourself!—that is, "Cause
yourself to be frozen!"). When {taD} is treated in the idiomatic sense of
"not move," however, it is treated as if it were a verb describing an
activity, such as {yIt} ("walk"): {yIyIt!} ("Walk!").
>>
This is also a passage which shows that there definitely is some kind of
difference between verbs of state and verbs of activity.
Is {tuv} a verb of state or a verb of activity? If you think you can say
{loD tuv} "the patient man," then you must accept that {tuv} is a verb of
state, and therefore you must accept that {yItuv'eghmoH} is the correct
command to give. (Or, perhaps Lawrence actually meant {petuv'eghmoH}.)
Still, this rule is broken sometimes. How about {QaghlIj tIchID; yIyoH!}
"Have the courage to admit your mistakes"? Is {yoH} a verb of state or a
verb of activity? Can you say {loD yoH} "brave man"?
SuStel
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