tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 13 07:59:42 1994
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Re: KLBC: prepositional phrases
Hu'tegh! nuq ja' R.B Franklin jay'?
=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?
=Is there a way to distinguish these actions in Klingon?
Hehehe. In Modern Greek, the preposition "se" is as ambiguous as Klingon
-Daq. Interestingly enough, the above would be translated as follows:
1. mbeno s' ti sala perpatondas
I_go Daq the hall walking
(vaSDaq vI'el jIyIttaHvIS; you can't say
perpato s' ti sala)
I_walk Daq the hall
2. perpato [s'/ pros] ti sala
I_walk Daq/ towards the hall
3. perpato [mesa] s' ti sala
I_walk [inside] Daq the hall
So in Greek, the equivalent phrase means the last two, and there are ways
of further disambiguating. In Klingon, I'm sure it means all three; to
disambiguate, I'd say:
1. vaS vI'eltaHvIS jIyIt.
2. vaS HeDaq jIyIt.
3. Got me; there's no word for inside.
=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?
=E.g. vaSDaq jIyIt I'm walking (with)in the hall.
= vaSDaq vIyIt I'm walking in(to) the hall.
No, because vaSDaq vIghoS would not make sense; it's mean "I go to it to
the hall." Verbs agree with indirect objects only when they're not named
in the sentence, as far as I know; you can say ghIchlIj qanob (which, pace
Holtej, is canon, even if it looks very Englishly), but I doubt you can
say wa' puqvaD yuchmey lunob. jI-/vI- have nothing to do with -Daq. Nice try
though; it *is* the kind of thing languages would do...
--
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Nick Nicholas. Linguistics, University of Melbourne. [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected]
AND MOVING REAL SOON NOW TO: [email protected]