tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 28 13:11:01 1997
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Re: -moH verbs as intransitive???
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I'm sorry, Qermaq. You've really confused me. I don't see what the
problem is. Worried that chemoH means "create (v int)"? Uh, how can
create be intransitive? How is it possible to create without creating
something? If you're not creating anything, in what sense are you
creating?
I think you're having trouble with some of the subtleties of objects and
no-objects. For example, you write:
>"I am afraid to create" would then properly have the suffix order
>jIchenmoHvIp!!! But if we slip -vIp in its 'correct' spot, we get
>jIchenvIpmoH, which is clearly wrong. It should, according to the models I've
>seen, be vIchenvIpmoH (or use a similar prefix which is object-specific)
Now hold on. Just because a verb normally takes, even requires an object,
doesn't mean it HAS to take object-specific prefixes! Look at section
4.1.1, p.33-34.
"This set of prefixes [no-object] when an object is possible, but unknown
or vague. Thus, {jIyaj} _I understand_ can be used when the speaker
understands things in general, knows what is going on, or understands what
another speaker has just said.... Similarly, {maSop} _we eat_ can be used
to indicate a general act of eating, but not if a specific food is
mentioned."
So, there's nothing wrong with {jIchenvIpmoH} for "I am afraid to create"
(aside from the fact that Klingons have a social taboo against using
non-negated -vIp in first person). I means "afraid to create... in
general." The object is ellipsized, made sorta non-specific, but still
there.
The trouble, I think, is in the various fixations on "transitive" and
"intransitive." It happens that I think that these concepts ARE meaningful
in Klingon, at least in certain senses (e.g. the transitive and
intransitive meanings of "drown" in English I would expect to be distinct
in Klingon, as shown by canon pairs of words like vem/vemmoH, ghuH/ghuHmoH,
etc.) But some cases of transitive/intransitive pairs are more instances
of ellipsized objects, as here, than true changes of valency. We can use
{Sop}/"eat" intransitively both in English and in Klingon, but in both
languages the basic meaning and even valency of the verb isn't really
changed. It isn't possible to eat without there being something on the
receiving end (the thing being eaten); the point is whether or not that
thing is something specific or enters into the discussion. If I say
"jISop" or "I eat", obviously I mean that I eat something, otherwise how
could I be eating? But what I eat is not really what I'm talking about:
I'm merely stating that I do engage in eating stuff. This is different
from words like, say "break." When I say "the stick broke," the meaning is
drastically different from "the stick broke the cup." At least if you're a
stick. In the first sentence, the stick is what winds up in pieces, and in
the second it's the cup (with nothing said about how whole the stick is at
the end). This is a different sort of blurring between transitive and
intransitive uses, one which English does a lot and many languages don't
do, and one which I would be very surprised to find in Klingon (outside of
a few exceptional cases, since languages are never perfectly regular). The
grammar of Klingon, with its existence of -moH and the word-pairs we see in
the lexicon which use it, argue strongly against this sort of blurring
(though I *think* we have canon of the verb {tagh} being used both ways. I
know there's {taghbej mu'qaD veS}. But as I said, exceptions happen, and
the rest of the evidence we have seems pretty good to me).
~mark
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