tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 15 23:12:26 1994
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"Is this seat taken?"
>From: [email protected]
>Date: Wed, 16 Feb 94 02:38:47 EST
>I found in the appendix under Useful Klingon Expressions
>{quSDaQ ba' lu''a'} and I want to talk about this phrase. But the first item
>of business is performing a typo-ectomy. That first {Q} should be {q} and
>there should be no space between {ba'} and {-lu''a'}. So, it comes out
>{quSDaq ba'lu''a'}. So, /this/ is canonical. We can't really deny that too
>strongly since it is right there glaring at us from TKD, in its ugly,
>corrupted, typo-ed form. Anyways, how do the opinions go along the lines of
>using {-lu'} with intransitive verbs like {ba'}. Does {ba'lu'} mean "someone
>sits." Can we also say things like {Qonglu'}, {yItlu'}, {Heghlu'}, etc.
>Or not?
My initial response was "no", it didn't sit well in my ears. Then I
thought for a moment, and completely reversed my point of view. My take on
this is "definitely". For all that it's useful to think of "-lu'" as a
passivizer, technically it really does mean "an indefinite subject X's".
So yes, "yItlu'" would work for "someone walks"; etc. "Is someone there?"
could very succinctly be expressed "SaHlu''a'?" or something.
Even in languages which have a definite passive voice, this tricks
resembling this happen; I recall learning in Sanskrit that you sometimes
see things like "In the forest, it is happily lived by the hermits" instead
of "the hermits live happily in the forest".
~mark