tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 27 11:22:45 2014

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

[Tlhingan-hol] Verbing objects

SuStel ([email protected])



From: "Bellerophon, modeler" <[email protected]>
> What about {Qoch} & {Qochbe'}? This came up a few months ago regarding use
> of sentence-as-object for the matter agreed upon: whether it was correct
> usage to say ?{maQoch 'e' wIQochbe'}. Would you object to this usage? Also
> an object could logically be the person (dis)agreed with, as in ?{muQoch
> matlh}. But would a Klingon would tolerate an imprecise construction like
> ?{maHIvrup 'e' Qoch matlh jIH je} when it would be just as easy to state
> who thinks what: {maHIvrup 'e' Qub matlh. jIQoch}?

In the end, you're just asking whether the object of {Qoch} is the
matter disagreed with; the rest is just a distraction.

I like your "I participate conference" idea. If I said, "I disagree
policy," you'd understand me. Therefore, it's reasonable to conclude
that {ngoch vIQoch} is a valid sentence, if we believe that the only
restriction on objects is that they make unambiguous sense. If I said,
"I disagree Maltz," you'd also understand me, so perhaps {matlh vIQoch}
is also valid.

I'm not saying this is a grammatical proof of anything, just that we
might use it to help us English-addled people try to figure out whether
an object makes sense with the given gloss. For instance, I can say, "I
sleep bed," and you'd understand me, but in this case *{QongDaq vIQong}
is—presumably—not valid, because you don't sleep the bed, you sleep
ON the bed, and Klingon has a noun case for that: {QongDaqDaq jIQong}.

As for your sentence-as-object example, I think it's flawed. If we
assume that {Qoch} can take an object, then I interpret {maHIvrup 'e'
wIQoch jIH matlh je} as "Maltz and I (both) disagree that we are ready
to attack." In other words, we both think we're not ready to attack;
we're not disagreeing with each other. Perhaps to disagree with each
other we need to say {maQochchuq}, but then we obviously can't add an
{'e'} object to that sentence.

Like I said, if we give up a strict interpretation of our English
glosses, it becomes difficult to decide on proper subjects and objects.
But I think that might just be the boat we're in.

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/

_______________________________________________
Tlhingan-hol mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol


Back to archive top level