tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 27 14:08:11 2004

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Re: action verbs vs. qualities

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

ghItlhpu' SuStel:

>You're doing exactly what ghunchu'wI' is pointing out: you're starting with
>the assumption that Klingon fits into an agent/patient/focus scheme, and
>deciding how the language works based on that.

I'm not so sure about "focus", but the ideas of agent and patient are a darn 
sight more stable across languages than subject and object are. Sure, 
Klingon might not have overt agent/patient distinctions in its grammar. But 
just because a language uses subject and object distinctions rather than 
agent and patient doesn't mean that the agent and patient concepts don't 
have any use in understanding the grammar.

I'll say it again: When I originally used these terms, all I wanted was to 
identify the difference between {-pu'} and {-ta'}, and to try and understand 
it better in the apparent dearth of canon support. As has already been 
pointed out, our canon of {-ta'} and {-lI'} is nowhere near as expansive as 
than of {-pu'} and {-taH}. It seems that others are continuing on with the 
agent/patient thing after I've abandoned it, though.

>There's an interesting bit in KGT (which I don't have with me) that 
>explains
>that with some words (like describing food), a quality is not inherent in
>the subject, but rather is a description of the effect the subject has on
>someone.
>    na' Ha'DIbaH
>    The meat is salty.
>To the Klingon perspective, this doesn't mean the meat expresses the 
>quality
>of saltiness, it means I, the eater, experience saltiness when eating the
>meat.  So what's the agent/patient relationship there?  Does this thinking
>apply to all quality verbs, or just ones desribing food and music?  We 
>don't
>know.

True. The meat isn't making itself be salty; it just is. So it's probably 
not an agent. But the person tasting it isn't actively tasting anything in 
this sentence (because if they were, they would have said so). So the person 
tasting it could almost be said to be a patient as well. What to do with 
that?

To my way of thinking, this verb seems to be like {Sum} and {Hop}: they have 
to be correctly interpreted in terms of context. If I say {Sum raS}, the 
table's in Brisbane, Australia; if SuStel says the same thing, it's 
somewhere in the United States. In the same way, my {wIb} might be someone 
else's {na'} (although that's a poor contrast to use). I don't think that 
the meat is somehow "causing" the eater to experience saltiness. What I see 
in the way Okrand describes this (and {Sum}) is an idea of an implied topic. 
{Sum raS} "the table is near (to me)". {na' Ha'DIbaH} "the meat is salty (to 
me)". So in answer to your question, I tend to think it might apply to most 
(if not all) quality verbs: my {Quch vIl} might be a Klingon's {Quch Hab}. 
My {yuch qaq} might be your {yuch 'up}. My {Doq} might be what you'd call 
{SuD}.

Now, while I've attempted to justify the agent and patient in that sentence, 
that's only to go a bit further with the whole idea of deixis that Okrand 
brings up in HolQeD 7.4 (p. 2-12) with regard to {Sum}. I don't think that 
there is a need in Klingon grammar for an agent/patient distinction either 
(mainly because of this discussion, which has been very in-depth). Plus, now 
I understand {-ta'} a bit better. {{:)

Savan.

QeS lagh

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