tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 09 02:50:30 1994

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Re: Klingon math, et al

>>[The question mark is because {QuS} REALLY doesn't seem like a 
>>very transitive verb, yet a {-lu} suffix ALWAYS implies an 
>>object. Similarly, {SuD} listed as "gamble, take a chance, take 
>>a risk" becomes "In order that one gambles it" or "in order 
>>that it is gambled". I transformed this "it" into the "risk"
>>that 
>>is "taken". Of the entire translation, {QuSlu'meH} seems the 
>>strangest choice of words.]

>Not quite true.  "-lu'" need not imply an object.  It only implies that the
>*subject* is indefinite.  You can have an indefinite subject and no object.
>It's basically like replacing the subject with "vay'".  Indeed, we have
>canonical evidence: in TKD, in the phraselist, we have "quSDa[q]
>ba'lu''a'?" (typo: there's a Q instead of a q).  This is given as "Is this
>seat taken?"  Literally, it's "Is someone/something sitting in the seat" or
>even "Is it being sat in the chair?"  Sanskrit, which has a real passive,
>has no problem saying things like "In the forest it is happily lived by the
>hermits".  Don't mistake indefinite subject for a required object.

I don't know about that, since whenever {-lu'} is used, the prefix gets
flopped. It still seems to me that a grammatical object must somehow be
involved. What {quSDaq ba'lu''a'} says to me is that {ba'} takes a kind of
object, but that object must be locative. The sentence comes out as "Is this
seat being sat *in*?" What {QuSlu'} says to me is that {QuS} is mayhaps
transitive. In that case, it is just as appropriate as {jatlhlu'} or
{tlhoblu'}.

>>ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


>>charghwI'


>~mark

Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos

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