tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 08 12:52:27 1995

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

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

Re: Transitivity

>Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 08:22:19 -0400
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: Alan Anderson                        <[email protected]>

>'Iwvan wrote:
>> [...] in Klingon it is determined that the noun phrase
>> to the left of the verb {HoH}, whether or not it triggers agreement by
>> means of a prefix (Standard Klingon) or not (Clipped Klingon), must
>> refer to the victim, not the killer, the weapon, the time or the place.
>> (In linguistic terms, {HoH} assigns a thematic role to its object.)

>> So the definition of {HoH}, which the Klingon speaker has in his mind,
>> contains an explicit reference to the object.  In other words, {HoH}
>> is a transitive verb.

>The {HoH} which means "kill (someone/something)," the one that you are
>using, is transitive, and its object is the victim.  But there is an
>english verb "kill" which is NOT transitive.  The intransitive {HoH}
>would simply mean "kill" and have no object.

>Epiphany time, folks!  {jIHoH} means "I kill."  This also implies "I am a
>killer."  The difference between transitive and not can be transformed
>into a difference between stative and active!  {Sop} works the same way.
>{jISop} "I eat" or "I am an eater."  Maybe there are TWO verbs {HoH},
>one active one meaning "cause (someone/something) to die," and another
>stative one meaning "be a killer."  The active {Sop} would mean "to
>ingest (something)" and the stative {Sop} would mean "be an eater."

>These newly identified meanings are a bit strange-sounding, but there's
>no reason I can think of to dismiss them.  For instance, we already have
>{qay'} "be a problem."  Perhaps all the other verbs with intransitive
>translations are better classified as stative with an appropriate
>rewording of the english.  {Qong} seems to be a major offender in this
>argument, and I hereby offer my solution: {Qong} REALLY means "be asleep."

This is another argument that I think people have been missing each others
points on.

'Iwvan's points are valid.  And there are plenty of non-stative
intransitive verbs and stative transitives.  I think Krankor and I differ
here, but I, at least, think the difference is mostly cosmetic and in what
we choose to call things, rather than in something basic.

There really *does* seem to be a difference in Klingon between transitive
and intransitive.  "HoH" *is* transitive.  You can use it instransitively,
with no object, but it's not really intransitive.  How can you "be a
killer" without killing *something*?  Rather, intransitively-used
transitives mean that the object is still there, but is ellipsized; left
undefined, vague, and general.  "maSop" means "we eat"... not that there is
NO object to the eating, but rather that we eat stuff in general.  The
verb's meaning remains transitive, but its object is left to the reader's
imagination, and the reader is basically told it isn't very important.
(Note to Lojban speakers: think zo'e).  Note that this is how Okrand
himself describes this usage: Section 4.1.1: "This set of [transitive]
prefixes is also used when an object is possible, but unknown or vague."
Not that the object isn't there, that the verb is suddenly objectless, but
the object is left unspecified.

Similarly, I was slightly misunderstood when I said that "participate" is
transitive in English, with the object in locative.  Obviously,
*syntactically* it's intransitive.  My point was that *semantically*, in
*meaning*, "participate" always had an object, at least implied.  There's
no such thing as participation in English without something being
participated in.  For one reason or another we use "in" before that object,
but otherwise it behaves much like the obejct of a transitive verb.  That's
why I support a transitive "jeS" with the object being the activity
participated in.

What about intransitive verbs?  Krankor (with some degree of correctness
IMO), maintains that the transitive/intransitive distinction is artificial
in Klingon.  That "Qong" can be transitive too, we just don't know what
meaning its object would carry.  Perhaps it's meaningful to say "?rav
vIQong" with the object of "Qong" being the surface the person or animal
slept on (why not with -Daq?  Who knows, the language is strange).  In
Loglan (not Lojban), the "object" of the predicate analogous to "tIn" is
something the subject is bigger than, which would therefore do away with
law'/puS and in the normal sense would leave it elided: bigger than
something I'm not talking about.

I think Okrand could/should have been more specific about transitivity;
there are lots of things we don't know.  I certainly can believe that there
are intransitive verbs that take objects with meanings we might not expect.
English isn't very sensible about its transitives either
(e.g. "participate").  Mustn't expect Klingon to follow it in all things.

>-- ghunchu'wI'


~mark

Back to archive top level