tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 18 19:10:34 1996

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Re: KLBC-double-object verbs

~mark wrote:
>>...All other missing affixes are most likely simply
>> missing affixes and not existing affixes represented by empty
>> space.

HomDoq writes:
>what, exactly, is the difference between a "not existing affix,
>represented by empty space" and a null affix?

You've misread ~mark's statement.  I'll break it into two pieces:
"All other missing affixes are most likely simply missing affixes.
They aren't existing affixes represented by empty space."  There's
no support for the "null Type 5 suffix" that you proposed.

>...but "Give to him." and "Give it." are not complete sentences,
>are they.

Sure they are.  "People give gifts at Hanukkah" is a complete sentence
with no indirect object.  "Charities give to the needy" is a complete
sentence with no direct object.  "I gave at the office" is a complete
sentence with no objects at all.  "Sit" is a complete sentence.  "Read"
is a complete sentence.  "Give" is just as good at being intransitive
as "read" or "sit" are.

>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.

I don't think they have to "really mean" anything more than what they
say: "Give to him."  The gift is unspecified, and not necessarily even
implied.  (Do you have a problem with {ghaHvaD penob}?  This doesn't
have the ambiguity of {ghaHvaD yInob}.)  "Give it."  The recipient is
unspecified and, in the absence of context, unimportant.

>And I don't think that the examples I give
>are illegally constructed (except that explicit "jIH"). Are they?

[Actually, I'd rather believe that *all* examples like {tajlIj HInob}
are illegally constructed, canon or not. :-)  'ach batlh jIjeghnIS.]

-- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj

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