tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 08 12:32:53 1994
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Re: Adverbs, gerunds, participles, et al.
- From: d'Armond Speers <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Adverbs, gerunds, participles, et al.
- Date: Tue, 09 Aug 1994 00:27:11 -0400 (EDT)
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