tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 08 12:32:53 1994

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Re: Adverbs, gerunds, participles, et al.



charghwI'vo:
 
> Okay, okay. I REALLY wanted to respond to the original post,
> but I held back so Holtej, the Beginners' Grammarian, could get
> to this first. I even wrote out a response and then deleted it.

That's funny, the original post and the two responses were all in my 
box at the same time; I've been busy soothing a fussy baby (you'd be 
fussy too if you got 2 shots today!).

> > >4. How does one express infinitives? (Would they just be relegated to
> > >participle forms?) For example:
> > 
> > Infinitives are "verbs as nouns" and thus are handled as one handles gerunds.
> 
> What? I was under the distinct impression that Klingon didn't
> have infinitives. I'm sure I've heard ~mark say this a few
> times. Am I misquoting you, !~mark?

Klingon doesn't have infinitives.  I see why QumpIn says "vebs as 
nouns," although I'd advance a different theory about what infinitives 
are.  Consider the two sentences a) I want chocolate; and b) I want to 
go.  In (b), "to go" seems to be in a nominal position, based on (a).  
But, it's a verb, not a noun, not like a participle or a gerund; it's 
a verb.  It just has no tense.  It's non-finite.  Infinite.
(I guess under this interpretation, *all* verbs in Klingon are 
infinitives! ;) )

I'd interpret that sentence (b) above as having 2 clauses.  Generally, 
when I see this in English, it needs to be 2 sentences in Klingon to 
work grammatically.  "I want to go."  jIghoS vIneH.  2 sentences. And, 
definitely NOT a gerund.

> > -QumpIn 'avrIn
>
> charghwI'

--Holtej



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