tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 27 11:05:03 1994
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Re: Adjectival verbs
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Adjectival verbs
- Date: Sat, 27 Aug 94 23:01:04 EDT
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "Bill Willmerdinger" at Aug 26, 94 8:02 pm
According to Bill Willmerdinger:
>
>
> I think that I've been laboring under a misconception.
>
> I've been assuming that adjectival verbs, like "tuj" be hot or "boch" be
> shiny, could not be used as the main verb in a sentence, but only as modifiers
> on a noun. Looking at the examples in my TKD, however, I see "boch ghIchraj"
> and "yItamchoH", both of which use verbs I had tagged as "adjectival".
I had a different problem with these verbs early on, but I can
still empathize with your confusion. Basically, if these verbs
are not really "adjectival verbs". They are verbs that CAN be
used adjectivally. This means that they can either be used as
intransitive verbs or they can be used adjectivally. The
difference has to do with word order.
{Doq taj} is a complete sentence. "The dagger is red." {taj
Doq} is not a sentence at all. It means, "red daggar". See the
difference? Since it is an intransitive verb (you don't "red"
something), then, as a verb, you can't justify having it FOLLOW
a noun, since that makes the noun the OBJECT of the verb, and
intransitive verbs don't take objects. Meanwhile, the
adjectival use of a verb is a different grammatical
construction altogether.
> Has anyone else had this experience, or is there a List ruling on this
> subject? What's the consensus? (Or do I need to issue another replacement
> proverb for asking a dumb question?)
There are no stupid questions. Only the potential for stupid
answers. Ignorance is curable.
> Qob
charghwI'