tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 14 17:23:09 1995
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Re: Transitivity
According to [email protected]:
>
> I originally posed a question regarding the transitivity of Klingon verbs
> being determined by which set of pronomial verb prefixes is used. I then
> thought that Klingon grammarians MIGHT not consider the terms transitive and
> intransitive at all but only look at whether a verb has an object or no
> object, the terms MO uses in TKD. A lot of discussion has shown me that
> people out there are really thinking.
Yes. The debate of this sort of detail about the language is
very much alive.
> We have seen that many Klingon verbs can be considered by English grammarians
> to be either transitive or intransitive; stative verbs do NOT take an object
> and modify their subject.
I'll agree, though some will then argue about what really
qualifies as a stative verb. I lean toward it being the class
of verbs with "be" as the first word in their definition. There
are many of them. When I made my own word list, I made the
English-Klingon side include an extra copy of these words so I
have a sublist that only includes these words. It helps while
writing. Still, Krankor in particular was discontent with this
method of classification.
> Now, let's look at the verb suffix <-moH>. <chen> means "[something] takes
> form" while <chenmoH> means "build [something], i.e. make [something] take
> form." <chenmoH> is NOT a separate word, although entered in the dictionary
> separately. It IS a verb root plus a suffix. In conclusion, <-moH> can and
> often does make an apparently intransitive verb by English-speakers'
> standards transitive.
That is the one function of {-moH} that we all agree on.
Meanwhile, the argument has never been fully resolved when one
wishes to apply {-moH} to a verb that already has an object,
like "The captain caused me to kill the officer." This would
give us two objects -- one for the causation and the other for
the verb stem.
Basically, we've resolved to avoid this altogether by
separating the causation out into a separate verb and using a
sentence-as-object construction instead of the {-moH} suffix.
Otherwise, we simply don't know how to handle two objects.
We similarly don't really know how to handle verbs like {pong},
since they require two objects. The subject is the one who is
naming or calling. One object is the person being named and the
other object is the name. The closest I can come to using this
verb is something like {charghwI' mupong tlhInganpu'}. Still,
this is awkward and doesn't work very will when you try to
introduce a friend. (Just try it.) "You can call my friend
'{Holtej}'." Most people fall back to using the noun form.
{jupwI' pong 'oH Holtej'e'.}
We also can easily argue about the verb {vIH}. I tend to think
it is intransitive, so if I move my chair, {quSwIj vIvIHmoH.}
Others have argued that they could just say, {quSwIj vIvIH.} I
then ask how I could say, "I move" thinking {jIvIH} and they
answer that I should say, {jIvIH'egh}. Notice that {-'egh} can
be the mirror image of {-moH} in that instead of making an
intransitive verb transitive, it can make a transitive verb
intransitive. In other words, by my perspective, {jIvIH} and
{jIvIH'eghmoH} mean the same thing.
For those who don't like {vIH} in that example, use {ba'}.
jIba' = jIba''eghmoH.
Just more stuff to think about.
> peHruS
charghwI'
--
\___
o_/ \
<\__,\
"> | Get a grip.
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