tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 28 22:04:20 1994
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Re: vay' and lu'
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: vay' and lu'
- Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 01:03:44 -0500
>Subject: Re: vay' and lu'
>Date: 94-12-29 00:04:22 EST
>From: [email protected] (William H. Martin)
>According to [email protected]:
>..
>> You seem to be saying that because {vIleghlu'} has a prefix that indicates
a
>> {jIH} subject and because {-qang} ascribes volition to the subject, then
>> {vIleghqanglu'} should ascribe volition to the {jIH}. I disagree with this
>> for the following reason. "Subject" and "object" are grammatical terms,
and
>> since volition is a semantic concept, I'll use the terms "agent" and
>> "patient", since they're semantic terms. In {vIleghlu'} the patient is
{jIH}.
>> I see {-qang} as ascribing volition of willingness to the agent, which in
>> this case is indicated to be indefinite by {-lu'}...
>By this reasoning, the example Heghqanglu'pu' must be
>translated wrong, since neither {-moH} nor {-lu'} would be able
>to change the volition from the agent to the patient. You spend
Whoa. Where in there did you pick up that {-moH} could not transfer the
volition?? I never implied anything of the sort. I only meant {-lu'} is not
really qualified to transfer such volition. Also, just to clarify the example
in TKD is {HeghqangmoHlu'pu'}, and it is translated wrong there because the
first "it" is really indefinite. Tho, that's not really central to our
argument.
>quite a while building this argument that {vIleghqanglu'} could
>NEVER mean "I am willing to be seen," and then you abandon it
>to accept ~mark's suggestion that the word is ambiguous and
>must be interpreted by context. Copout. If you mean to say that
>only the agent can have volition, then the word cannot be
>ambiguous. If that is true, then Okrand's example is
>translated wrong in TKD. If that is false, then why bother
>spending so many words on an empty argument?
What you call a cop out is really just a slight change of mind, from which
I've since reverted to my original standpoint, after rethinking.
>> The prefix flop does not
>> make any change of agent and patient, and {-qang} should ascribe volition
to
>> the agent, not necessarily the subject indicated in the prefix, since the
use
>> of {-lu'} turns the subject indicated by the prefix into the patient
rather
>> than the agent. And the {jIH} remains in the object syntactic position to
>> boot. I must look at any type 2 suffix used in such a situation as
ascribing
>> volition to the agent, which in this case is indefinite. In case that was
too
>> opaque, I'll summarize to say that I believe {-qang} in {[jIH]
vIleghqanglu'}
>> ascribes volition to the agent, which is indefinite, and not the {jIH}
>> despite the fact that the prefix says it's the subject, because a) it is
>> syntactically an object, and b) it is the patient, to which volition is
not
>> really appropriately ascribed. I'm still rather opaque, tho.
>You leave no room for {Heghqanglu'pu'} = "It made him willing to
>die." Yet there it is in TKD.
No, it's {HeghqangmoHlu'pu'}. And I do leave room for it because {-moH} is a
different case altogether. With {-moH}, then the object can be the agent of
the main verb as well as patient of the causation. In that case it's fine to
transfer volition to it.
[...]
>You jumped into the "context determines who gets volition"
>argument with no transition whatsoever. Before, only the agent
>can have volition. Now, context determines who has volition. So
>why have you changed your mind?
The volition described by type 2's should be ascribed to the agent. So as I
said earlier, after rethinking ~mark's suggestion, I'm not so sure that
{vIleghqanglu'} could ever indicate the {jIH} as having the willingness. It
only works that way when you translate it into English using the passive
voice.
[...]
>Meanwhile, this interpretation is basically pulled out of thin
>air. Okrand simply doesn't tell us much about volition, except
>to expect it on the subject, except for in one example with
>{-lu'} where it is ascribed clearly to the object.
In that one example to which you refer, it is my belief that {-moH} is the
thing transfering the volition.
>If we accept that {-lu'} moves volition to the object, we gain
>a tool in the language. {Xqanglu'} indicates that the object is
>willing to be Xed, while {Xqang vay'} means that somebody is
>willing to X the object. We can be clear about who gets
>volition. If this is not accepted, then we can never be clear
>on who gets volition, and we get no new tools to disambiguate.
>The language loses something.
There are plenty of things the language can't do that English can, and there
are plenty more things that the language can do that English can't. The
latter are so much more elusive to us, however, so we often have trouble
believing that. You can't want {-lu'} to transfer volition to the object just
for a tiny semantic expansion that you may never have chance to use.
I contend that in that one TKD example on which you base your belief so
firmly that it is the {-moH} that transfers the volition. Meanwhile, why
should {-lu'} ever transfer volition to the patient, just because it does so
in English passive (and I thought we'd established that {-lu'} and passive
should not be considered semantic equivalents). Type 2's indicate volition of
the agent, which is the subject found after the verb. I don't believe
{vIleghqanglu'} should ever indicate willingness of {jIH} just because the
prefix indicates that {jIH} would be subject/agent. Prefixes work differently
with {-lu'}, and in {vIleghqanglu'} the {jIH} is both object (by its
syntactic position) and patient (by its semantic value) of the verb, neither
of which are very appropriate for volition to be ascribed to.
>> We can handle duel interpretations with context sorting things out. At
least
>> I can.
>While we CAN, I wonder if we are better off for it.
No, again, after rethinking, I think we are not better off with it.
This entire argument is probably worthless to us both as far as our usage is
concerned. My long involved argument with Holtej on whether N-N compounds and
possessives are really one and the same structure with equivalent meanings
has proven to be quite useless in either of our usages, with no loss of
understanding clarity, etc., on anyone's part.
What I would really like to see is so much more of our using tlhIngan Hol in
its raw form here on the list. Why don't we? Do we not have something to talk
about? Are we too lazy? I dunno.
Guido