tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 24 12:53:18 1997
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Re: KLBC: -vaD
- From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: -vaD
- Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 14:52:57 -0600 (CST)
: From: [email protected] (Scott D. Randel):
: >Can the N-5 suffix -vaD ("for, intended for") be used to mean "on
: >behalf of," as the English "for" can? As an example, Dr. Seuss's
: >Lorax would say "I speak for the trees." Would {SormeyvaD vIjatlh}
: >mean the same thing?
:
: Oooh! Intriguing. Something about that sounds somewhat nice to me. But I
: don't think I want to go there. It's a little too much load to compete
: with the far more common "I speak to the trees"; the "represent" meaning
: simply would be selected against through disuse, and would have to be
: represented, as I think charghwI' suggested, with 'oS.
:
: ~mark
"This suffix indicates that the noun to which it is attached is in some
way the
beneficiary of the action, the person or thing for whom or for which the
activity
occurs. {Qu'vaD lI' De'vam} `This information is useful for the mission.'
The noun
{Qu'vaD} means `for the mission', and in this sentence {-vaD} indicates
that the
information is intended to be used somehow for the mission under
discussion." (TKD:28f)
Hmm... "in some way the beneficiary..." Nicely ambiguous. I think Scott's on
to something. Marking the indirect object is just one of its uses:
"While the object of the verb is the recipient of the action, the indirect
object may
be considered the beneficiary. In a Klingon sentence, the indirect object
precedes the
object and is suffixed with the Type 5 noun suffix {-vaD} `for, intended
for.' The
suffix may be attached to either a noun or a pronoun." (TKD 180)
Certainly {-vaD} is primarily used on this list to mean "to", we need to
remember that it does have other, perhaps more poetic, uses. What "I speak
for the trees" means isn't obvious in English either. After all, loggers
speak "for the trees" too, they just have a different constituency.
Voragh