tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 13 05:10:35 1994
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Re: KLBC: prepositional phrases
>From: "R.B Franklin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 01:00:09 -0700 (PDT)
>This is something I've always had trouble with:
>If I say {vaSDaq jIyIt}, does that mean:
>1. I am walking into the hall;
>2. I am walking towards the hall; or
>3. I am walking (with)in the hall?
I'd say all three. It's been my understanding, based on Okrand's usage,
that "-Daq" is both dative/motion towards (not to be confused with -vaD
which is also a dative of sorts) *and* locative/location.
>Is there a way to distinguish these actions in Klingon?
Hmm. Trickier one. I don't think I'd accept "vaSvaD jIyIt" for any of
these... There's "vaS vI'el" for "into" (maybe "vaS vI'elmeH jIyIt") and so
on with other locutions... "vaSDaq jIHtaHvIS jIyIt" for "I walk within the
hall"... the "towards" is trickiest, I think. I could almost see something
with "vaS Sep vI'el".
Note that these long-winded versions would really only be used in case the
speaker needed to be explicit, like if the simple "-Daq" version had
already caused the audience to understand the wrong one and the speaker
needed to correct the misinterpretation.
>Are {yIt} and other verbs of motion like {qet} & {puv} transitive in
>the same way {ghoS} is? (vaSDaq vIyIt) And if so, does the verb prefix
>indicate the prepositional relationship of the subject to the preceeding
>noun?
Um, "ghoS" is transitive, indicating the course that is followed (note that
ghoS means "follow (a course)") So you could say "Hevetlh vIghoS" "I
walked down that hall" (vaS, to me, is hall as in large room (see vaS's'
for Great Hall, not Great Corridor)). You don't have type-5 suffixes on
direct objects. "?vaSDaq vIyIt" means "In/to the hall, I walk it," for
some strange transitive meaning of "walk" (if you can think of any) even as
"pa'Daq vISop" means "I eat it in the room," not necessarily meaning that
you're eating the room. And probably not. If a noun takes a type-5
suffix, it's not the object of the verb, but is in a different case (see
3.3.5).
>E.g. vaSDaq jIyIt I'm walking (with)in the hall.
> vaSDaq vIyIt I'm walking in(to) the hall.
See above. You can't put "-Daq" on something and expect it to be the
object.
>yoDtargh
~mark