tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 18 14:45:21 1996

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

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

Re: KLBC-double-object verbs

According to Marc Ruehlaender:
> 
... 
> what, exactly, is the difference between a "not existing affix,
> represented by empty space" and a null affix?

If I say {Duj legh HoD}, even though the verb appears to have
no prefix, we know that it really has a null prefix. Third
person subject with or without a third person object (except
for third person plural subject and third person singular
object) is represented by the absence of a verbal prefix.

There is no such thing in Klingon as a main verb in a sentence
with no indication of the person and number of the subject and
object. The apparent absence of such a prefix indicates a
specific condition: third person singular or plural subject
with no object, or third person singular subject with a third
person singular or plural object, or a third person plural
subject with a third person plural object). The apparent
absence tells you something specific, so it is a null prefix.

Meanwhile, suffixes don't do the same thing. If a verb lacks a
Type 5 suffix, it simply means that it lacks a Type 5 suffix.
There is no indefinite subject and no reference to ability.
That's all. It is not a Null Type 5 suffix. It simply lacks a
Type 5 suffix because nothing about Type 5 is indicated.

The lack of a Type 6 verb suffix tells you nothing about the
speaker's certainty of the action of the verb. It is not
another kind of indicator of certainty. There is no indicator
of certainty.

Similarly, for nouns, Type 2 suffixes tell you both plurality
and whether something is a body part, being capable of language
or neither, or whether they are scattered all about. The lack
of a Type 2 suffix tells you none of these things. There is no
evident null Type 2 noun suffix.

This is perhaps the best example, since we'd be tempted to say
that a noun lacking a Type 2 suffix must be singular, right? In
English, nouns without "s" at the end are usually singular. But
in Klingon, indicating that a noun is plural is optional,
especially when that information would be redundant, as in
{cha' Duj vIghaj.} Obviously {Duj} is plural here, but the
language does not require me to add the {-mey} suffix.

This is the way that the absence of any affix (except the verb
prefix) tells us nothing about that aspect of that word's
meaning. The apparent absence of a verb prefix, however, does
convey as much information as any other prefix. We know that
the subject is third person. This is more information than we
get from the absence of any other affix.
...
> > The problem is the ambiguity of {yI-}. Your first example can
> > easily be a global statement with no direct object: "Give to
> > him." The second example would almost certainly be considered
> > to have no indirect object. "Give it." I do not see these as
> > equivalent.
> > 
> but "Give to him." and "Give it." are not complete sentences,
> are they. 

Yes, they are. They may offer incomplete information, as do
most human sentences in any language, but they are complete
sentences. Context tends to fill in a lot of information.
Otherwise, the sentence, "Hand it to me," would be gibberish.
Meanwhile, if it follows my asking you, "Do you have a
screwdriver," and you answering "Yes. I have one right here,"
then "Hand it to me," is a very complete sentence telling you
exactly what you need to know in order to prevent undesirable
results from my occasionally violent temper. [This is a joke.]

> What they really mean is something like "Give him
> something." or (if "it" was specified earlier in the conversation)
> "Give it to him." and "Give it to someone." or "Give it to him."
> (if "him" was specified earlier") respectively. I could live
> with that ambiguity. And I don't think that the examples I give
> are illegally constructed (except that explicit "jIH"). Are they?

There are certainly contexts in which your sentence would be
complete, but very few in which they would be equivalent. Each
of your sentences had a focus and the focus was unrelated
between them. One focussed upon what he gave, with no
reference to whom he was giving it. The other focused on the
recipient with no reference to what was to be given. By the
same token, you could just say {yInob} and be done with it.
"Give!".

> 				HomDoq
> 
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Marc Ruehlaender	[email protected]
> Universitaet des Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, Germany
> ----------------------------------------------------
> 

charghwI'
-- 

 \___
 o_/ \
 <\__,\
  ">   | Get a grip.
   `   |

Back to archive top level