tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 15 13:55:20 2002
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RE: RE: KLBC: adverbs
DloraH, BG wrote:
> >> And, if you're going to put the word in quotes, it's "adverbial".
> >
> > I know that I don't know exactly the word.
> > what's the difference adverbial/adverb?
>
>You were quoting MO; he use "adverbial" (whatever the difference is, if any).
My (admittedly simplistic) understanding is that an adverbial is something
that is "adverb-like".
The practical distinction I think Okrand is using is that, in many
languages, adverbs can be recognized either by their form or by some
affix: e.g. -ly ("cleverly") and -wise ("counter-clockwise") in English;
-o in Russian ("khorosho", "velikolepno"); -e and -iter in Latin ("bene",
"celeriter"); etc. Thus, even though you don't know the meaning or root of
a particular adverb, you can at least tell what part of speech it
is. Adverbials OTOH cannot be so identified; they have to be
learned. Note that English uses both adverbs as well as adverbials:
He runs quickly/clumsily.
"quickly" and "clumsily" are adverbs, as they have the standard adverb
ending -ly.
He runs fast/quick/well/good.
"fast/quick" and "well/good" are adverbials, three of which are identical
in form to adjectives.(N.B. "fast" and "good" are also considered
sub-standard style.) If you didn't know the meaning of the words, there's
no way to tell (short of looking them up in a dictionary) that they aren't
nouns or part of a compound verb (e.g. "He runs numbers") or something else
entirely. To further complicate matters for those trying to learn English,
"fast" is also homophonous to the verb "fast", and "well" to the noun "well".
Klingon "adverbials" cannot be identified as such, which is why Okrand
never calls them adverbs. If you don't know the word, there is no way of
telling whether it is an adverbial, an unsuffixed noun, an un-affixed verb,
or even a name. The only hint is its position at the head of the OVS
string. And syntax is not 100% reliable. Consider the difficulty in parsing:
torgh, yIghoS!
"Torg, approach!"
torgh yIghoS!
"Approach Torg!"
tugh yIghoS!
"Approach quickly! Come quickly!"
if you didn't know the meaning of {torgh} or {tugh}.
The disadvantage of the Klingon system - which has been commented on at
length in recent threads - is that new adverbs cannot be freely formed
simply by adding the requisite affix (e.g. clumsy/clumsily,
skillful/skillfully, etc., etc.).
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons