tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 17 21:08:25 1997
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Re: KLBC: imperatives
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: imperatives
- Date: Wed, 18 Jun 97 00:56:02 UT
(Our subject lines were having a Re:/RE: war. I admit it; mine's the one that
likes to capitalize. I've permanently screwed up the list's archive subject
search!)
[email protected] on behalf of [email protected] wrote:
> I asked this question about imperatives, and little time after that,
realized
> that
> *all* forms of verbs were involved, not only imperative. For example,
> (1) {pIch Daghaj} "it is your fault", "you have faulted"
> (2) {pIch Daghaj wo'rIv} "you, Worf, have faulted"
> (3) {wo'rIv, pIch Daghaj} "Worf, you have faulted"
> (don't ask me why I translate all these in past without the {-pu'} ; maybe
> you just
> realize some fault has been commited when it's too late).
>
> TKD section 5.6 is not so clear about this. The third form, direct address
or
> "vocative", is certainly OK. But the second one makes {wo'rIv} give more
> precise
> information about the "you" implied by the verb prefix.
There is no reason to suspect this of Klingon. I do not mean that this cannot
happen, but so far as we know, when you use any preifx which indicates 2nd
person subject, you've got to HAVE a 2nd-person subject. {pIch Daghaj wo'rIv}
is direct address. It may be rewritten as {pIch Daghaj SoH wo'rIv}. It's
still direct address. It's not apposition.
> Since the use of a 2nd or 3rd person subject prefix leaves the "subject"
slot
> empty
> in the sentence, I was just wondering how to fill it.
They don't. The subject is still there. You are allowed to elide pronouns
whenever there's enough information to do so. But this doesn't mean there's
no subject. See TKD 5.1 and 6.1.
> However, see TKD 4.2.5
> (indefinite subject) about how this slot is taken advantage of whenever it
is
> void...
When using the indefinite subject suffix, there IS no subject. There's
nothing in its "slot."
> P.S. -- A last remark about {mI'QeD} for "mathematics" : the word-for-word
> English
> equivalent is "science of numbers" which we mathematicians (haha!
> double-subject
> here!)
That's apposition, not direct address.
> used to call "arithmetic" and nowadays "number theory". Other topics
> in
> maths would be "analysis situs" etc., but, as I've said in a previous
> message,
> {mI'Qed} or its equivalent is common in many Terran languages. There's no
> need
> (and no hope) to map exactly French words onto Klingon ones... -- HdW
Well, since I, a non-mathemetician, have no problem with "number-science" as a
descriptive phrase for mathematics, perhaps some Klingons don't too. And
perhaps Klingon mathemeticians get irritated with laymen Klingons who
imprecisely call their field {mI'QeD}. :-D
--
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97462.0