tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 16 07:58:30 1996
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Re: jaH
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: jaH
- Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 10:58:19 -0500
charghwI' quotes TKD page 28:
>"There are a few verbs whose meanings include locative notions,
>such as {ghoS} /approach, proceed/. The locative suffix need not
>be used on nouns which are the objects of such verbs."
Nick Nicholas writes:
>I think you've just dug your own grave. Locative is, if anything, a more
>general notion than directional; if we don't assume he means just
>'directional' here, but all locatives, stative and directional, then he may
>well be licencing "quS vIba'" --- something for which we have no precedent
>whatsoever. For directionals, at least, we have the precedent of ghoS.
I'm with charghwI' here. {ghoS} is explicitly presented as one of the
"locative notion" verbs; others are readily apparent from their glosses.
{DoH} already includes the "from" idea; saying {jorwI'vo' DoH} *might* be
okay, but {jorwI' DoH} is certainly okay. {'el} is "go in", with "in" as
part of its definition.
>So3 it's natural for 'el to take a direct object, because it's associated
>with an object as location, and it's natural for ghoS, but it's not natural
>for jaH, because the thing you go to is... not a location? And the
>difference between jaH and ghoS is that what you approach... is a location?
The distinction *I* make between them is this:
- For {'el} you "go in" something
- For {ghoS} you "approach" something
- For {jaH} you "go" *to* something.
The word "to" is not part of the definition of {jaH}, and must be added
if you're going to consider a location or destination.
>I'm sorry, charghwI', but this is sophistry. The simple fact is, the reason
>you consider it natural for 'el to take a direct object is because that's
>what English happens to do. There is nothing inherent in the semantics of
>'el to differentiate it from jaH. The things gone to in both cases are
>Goals, in case grammar terms. What cases they turn up in in natural
>languages --- datives, accusatives, direct objects, indirect objects --- is,
>if not arbitrary, at the least open to choice.
I believe the choice has been made for us by Okrand, in his decision *not*
to include the locative notion of "to" in the gloss for {jaH}.
>The German TKD has already come out. What if 'el is glossed as "eintreten",
>which must take the preposition "in"? What happens if, tommorow, a German
>Klingonists says that you can't say "juH vI'el", but must say "juHDaq
>jI'el", because the German verb is clearly intransitive? Are you going to
>say that the German TKD is non-canon, and the English TKD is?
If Okrand wrote the German TKD and it disagrees with the English TKD, then
they are both canon, but either there is ambiguity in the language or one
of them is "canonically wrong" the way we consider {cha'maH wa' vatlh rep}
for 12:00 noon from PK to be wrong.
If someone else translated TKD into German and used "eintreten" without the
preposition "in" as the gloss for {'el}, I'd have to say it was just wrong.
>The accident of case assignment in English is no basis for argumentation.
>The only such basis is what we can infer about the semantics of these verbs.
>We know that verbs other than ghoS take direct objects. I maintain that the
>verb the *least* semantically distant from ghoS is jaH. So the one other
>verb I *would* expect to take a direct object is jaH.
Actually, I consider {leng} to be closer to {ghoS} than {jaH} is. (I even
used a locative-ish phrase as its object recently.) But that's just me.
>Now, understand that my own policy all along, too, has been to err on the
>side of caution. But if we bar jaH here, then we'll need canon to justify
>the use of direct objects with Dech, 'el, and bav, which you regarded as so
>obvious. You have not demonstrated to my satisfaction that your criterion
>for obviousness is better than mine. If we can truly be sure of nothing but
>ghoS taking direct objects, then "yuQ vIbav" can no longer be considered
>acceptable. (And I must say, I have problems with that use of bav anyway.)
True, {bav} is not as obviously transitive as {'el}. I recognize that
each time I have occasion to use it. *My* criterion for obviousness is
the use of a spacial preposition or an equivalent phrase in the word's
gloss. That means {Dech} in isolation isn't perfectly obvious to me, but
there are other clues (like {mongDech}) which convince me that it must be
transitive.
>In real life, I'm happy to emend all the vIjaH in my text to 'oHDaq jIjaH;
>but particularly since Mark had let me get away with it in Hamlet (then
>again, we are both Esperantists and Lojbanists, and that explains why we
>would see jaH as transitive; the real issue is, why should you not) --- I'd
>rather have grounds more relative than this.
Before TKW, I'd have been less inclined to debate the transitivity of {jaH}.
But we have canon for its *not* being used with a destination as its object.
-- ghunchu'wI'