tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 13 22:20:07 1994
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
-lu'
ghItlhta' charghwI':
>First, apparently the omission of 3rd person in the passive
>voice description was intended to allow the potential for the
>use of passive voice with an intransitive verb, like ba'lu'.
>"One sits." There is no way to translate that into a passive
>construction in English.
>Still, whenever the verb is transitive, evidence is strong that
>the passive voice is called for, even with the third person. In
>addition to making the subject indefinite, most canon examples
>of {-lu'} also shift the focus to the object to such an extent
>that the meanings of the suffixes get applied to the object
>instead of the subject.
This is exactly where we diverge opinion-wise on {-lu'}. It is my personal
belief that you have so much influence from the concept of passive in English
that you transfer that onto the way you think of {-lu'}, as do many people.
That's not your fault, but I try to look at {-lu'} much more non-objectively.
Nothing in TKD really suggest that {-lu'} has anything to do with passive.
The prefixes get flopped (I use 'flopped' only while looking for a better
word), but that happens in many languages, and is not the same as transposing
the patient to the syntactic position of subject, since the patient of a
{-lu'} verb in Klingon is still syntactically an object.
You said that in most canon examples using {-lu'}, the suffixes apply more to
the object than the indefinite subject. Well, let's examine the verb suffixes
that apply to nouns, specifically the syntactic subject: type 2's, and one
type 5 {-laH}. Of course, examining {-laH} is useless, since it never goes
with {-lu'}. But the type 2's may offer insight. Only one canon example uses
{-lu'} with a type 2:
{HeghqangmoHlu'pu'} = "it made him/her willing to die" (TKD pg 45)
The "it" in his translation is not in the Klingon. We can all observe this
very confidently. If the "it" were changed to "something," then that would be
a satisfactorily more accurate translation? In this case the {-qang} would
apply to the syntactic object anyways, since the verb {HeghqangmoH} literally
means "cause X to be willing to die," where X is the object and the noun to
which {-qang} really applies. There are no other examples like this, so
insight on {-lu'} used with type 2's goes only so far. But we do have
{ba'lu'} as a canonical verb, showing that intransitives do take {-lu'}. As
much as some people may not like it, that's canon, and it does fit in with
the grammar as a whole. {-lu'} has little to do with the object.
[Side note: Those who observe that since {HeghqangmoH} means "cause to be
willing to die" might wonder how one translates "be willing to cause to die."
{HeghmoHqang} is ungrammatical, so in Klingon "cause to be willing to die"
and "be willing to cause to die" are both {HeghqangmoH} with context sorting
out which meaning is meant. This applies to all verbs using {-moH} and a type
2 suffix.]
Okrand's descriptions often backfire when he says something about how Klingon
might be translated. Saying {-lu'} is often translated with passive in
English has lead some to believe that {-lu'} is passive. But the truth is
that it's meaning often (but not always) corresponds to the *semantic* value
expressed by passive in English. Nowhere does he imply a *grammatical*
relation between {-lu'} and passive voice.
The opinions expressed herein are MINE! Do you here?! ALL MINE!!!
Bwahahaha!!! Sorry dad, I'll try settle down before I hurt myself again.
Guido