tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 10 06:01:09 1997

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Re: Transitivity



ja' peHruS:
>Earlier I presented a post proclaiming that I feel that tlhIngan Hol verbs
>are not necessarily inherently transitive/intransitive.  Rather, these verbs
>either take an object or do not take an object.

Isn't whether a verb takes an object the *definition* of transitivity?

>*Object* laj wotmey 'op 'e' nIDchugh yajbe' Hoch DaH vIja'nIS

Where did you find {'op}?  Its definition isn't in my dictionary.  I'm
not too sure how to parse this sentence anyway; the verb prefix on {nID}
doesn't match {wotmey}, which I *think* is supposed to be the subject.

>SKI:  Some Klingon verbs would make no sense taking an object.

This would mean that they are "inherently intransitive" to me.  But this
concept is meaningless as long as all we have to go on is the English
translation of a Klingon word with no further explanation.  Does {jeS}
take an object?  The gloss "participate" doesn't work unless you assume
an extra "in", but many of us have chosen to use {jeS} transitively, in
apparent defiance of strict interpretation of its translation.

>Still, I agree with HoD Qanqor's early feelings that Klingon grammarians do
>not classify verbs as transitive or intransitive, only that they have
>different verb pronomial prefixes for when they take an object than when they
>do not take an object.

The *real* question is:  What is the role of the object of a given verb?
If {Qong} has an object, what is it?  Can the object of {jatlh} be other
than a language?  What is the right thing to use as the object of {QoD}?
Answers to things like this would help us use the language correctly.

-- ghunchu'wI'




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