tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 08 12:58:53 1995
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Re: KLBC I'm confused (was: Re: Transitivity)
>Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 13:11:41 -0400
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: [email protected] (Steve Weaver)
>Mon, 8 May 1995 09:10:59 -0400 ghItlh *'Iwvan *ghunchu'wI' je:
>>On Mon, 8 May 1995 08:18:13 -0400, ghunchu'wI' said:
>>
>>> {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."
>>
>>That's true, but stative does not imply intransitive. Consider
>>{Ha'DIbaH vISop} `I eat meat' (`I am a meat-eater', `I am not a
>>vegetarian'), which is also stative.
>>
><...rest snipped...>
>Would these not require the {-wI'} suffix (one who is, one who does, thing
>which does) ?? ie, {jIHoH} "I kill", {jIHoHwI'} "I am a killer". Much like
>the "person" ending in ASL to make "Bake" into "Baker" (a person who bakes)
>??
You're getting confused. "*jIHoHwI'" is certainly wrong. If you mean to
say "I am a killer" that way, you can say "HoHwI' jIH". The point being
made here is that "jIHoH" *also* means "I am a killer"... after all, what's
the difference between "I kill" and "I am a killer"? That's what you have
to be thinking. In Hebrew, for example, the present "tense" isn't truly a
tense but a participle, something which is part adjective and part noun.
So "'ani shomer" is exactly the translation for *both* "I guard" and "I am
a guard." Someone (trI'Qal) long ago asked me how I'd say "The prisoner
escaped while Mara was the guard." I said "'avtaHvIS mara, nargh qama'."
Wait, she said, I wanted "while Mara *was the guard*", not "was guarding."
What's the difference? It's the old think-in-Klingon thing again.
~mark