tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 04 19:05:30 1996
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Re: jaH
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: jaH
- Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 22:05:46 -0500
Nick had written:
> The English rendering is not
> decisive, because there isn't a word for "go" in English which *could*
> take a direct object.
charghwI' shouted:
> THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT. IF HE WANTED TO DEFINE IT IN SUCH A
> WAY THAT IT MEANT "GO TO" HE WOULD HAVE USED "APPROACH" INSTEAD
> OF "GO". HE CHOSE "GO" BECAUSE {jaH} DOES NOT INCLUDE
> LOCATIVE/PREPOSITIONAL ASSOCIATION WITH A DIRECT OBJECT.
Nick writes:
>The shouting just proves you're not listening. 'Approach' doesn't mean 'go'
>at all; it's a much restricted meaning. Have another look at your dictionary.
>There is no English verb which means 'go' (*really* means 'go', as in
>unmarked verb of motion), and that could take a direct object.
It looks to me like *you* are the one who wasn't listening, Nick. Reread
what was "shouted" above -- he's arguing precisely that "approach" doesn't
mean "go". It means "go to", which is how you've been arguing that {jaH}
should be interpreted. I agree fully with the assessment that if Okrand
wanted {jaH} to mean "go to", he would have defined it either as "go to"
or "approach". Since he chose to gloss it with a word that cannot have a
direct object, I deduce that it should not have a direct object.
>As for 'go to'
>being the alternative, the fact that 'to' *never* shows up in one of these
>verb+preposition couplings has me worried, and should have you worried too.
I don't follow you. What's the cause for worry? (The preposition "behind"
doesn't appear, either. Should I be worried about that as well?)
I'll point out that {ghuH} "be alerted to" *does* have a "to" in it, but
I'm really not sure what you're concerned about, and I don't know if this
contributes to, takes away from, or is irrelevant to that concern.
>And no linguist can ever in good conscious write a dictionary without the
>word 'go' (just 'go', whatever the language actually does) in it: it's how
>they're trained. Okrand could not but have defined jaH as 'go': it doesn't
>prove the TKD grammar rule doesn't apply.
Sorry, you lost me completely. I know there's at least one misspelled word
in there, and it looks like a sentence or two got garbled. Do you mean all
linguists are compelled to include a word for the intransitive "go" in a
dictionary? If so, are you trying to use that as evidence that {jaH} can
have an object? I don't get it.
-- ghunchu'wI'