tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 07 12:43:10 1994

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: re: vIH



>     In particular, Okrand refers to two kinds of entries here. One >applies
>to adjectivally useful verbs, and here, we see that {vIH} fails, >because
the
>adjective is supposed to be listed first, and "move" is not an >adjective.
The
>other is as marqem states. "move" is the word one is most likely to >look
up,
>while "be in motion" is the more accurate listing of the verb. In this
>case,
>"move" really is the same thing as "be in motion" in one sense, so >long as
>you only accept the intransitive version of "move", hence the >oddness of
>including the word "move" in both sides of TKD.
>
>     So how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?
>
>charghwI'

loQ 'e' vIQoch

I cannot bring myself to believe that we should determine {vIH} is not a
possible adjectival simply because the first word in its description in TKD
is not an English adjective.

But I personally don't think {vIH} is an adjective, for other reasons. I
think it is a non-adjectival verb meaning "move" and Okrand added the "be in
motion" phrase for the sole purpose of clarifying its intransitivity. (It may
have been simpler just to openly identify all verbs as transitive vs.
intransitive in the compilation of the entire lexicon. Oh well.)

But here is where my disagreement with charghwI' comes in:
If {meQ} is an adjectival, (and we know it must be, lest we forsake a
perfectly good canonical example) then why is its description in TKD "burn"
both on the E-K and K-E sides, when "burn" isn't even anything close to an
adjective in English?

Like I've said before, we can't always trust Okrand's dictionary to be
exactly perfect and logical and completely in line with our way of looking at
grammar. Sorry to say.


Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos



Back to archive top level