tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 21 07:16:15 1997

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{-vIp} (Re: some tidbits qororvo')



Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
> >From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email protected]>[simile]

> >> I think the fact that Klingon has -vIp at all does indicate a certain
> >> bias towards viewing fear as something connected with active actions.[...]
> You can't be willing without being willing to do SOMEthing, so it makes
> sense as a suffix.  Ditto readiness.

And what counts as `doing something'?  Fighting?  Dying?  Being killed?
Remember the Welsh chieftains who declared that they were willing to be
ruled by a king born in Wales who spoke neither English nor French?  It
doesn't seem to make any semantic sense to talk of being ruled as doing
something.  In Klingon it doesn't make syntactic sense, either, whereas
in English it does, because you can make the willing party the subject
of the embedded clause.  It's all a matter of language-sensitive formal
criteria.

> The next, less certain step of philosophy relies on the added
> implication which I see (and maybe others do not) that "HaghvIp"
> means "he/she is afraid to laugh *and therefore doesn't*".  I
> don't see the same extension necessarily attaching to willingness
> or readiness, (i.e. "he's willing to laugh", but may or may not
> actually do it) but that's the only reason.

I tend to see it in the case of readiness, though you may be right
about willingness, in so far as it is possible to do something
willingly or unwillingly.  You're right that in {HaghvIp} the fear
may be seen as the reason for the non-occurrence of the action.
What about {HeghvIp} then?  Does that also mean that he is afraid
to die and therefore refrains from dying?  If so, what would you say
if he has no control over his death, but is scared of the thought
of that inevitable event?  (Hm.  DIvI' Hol jatlhlu'chugh, rap'a'
_afraid to die_ _afraid of dying_ je?  DujwIj vIvoqbe'.)

--'Iwvan

-- 
"reH Sov yInej 'ej Dap yImuS,          <dOstI bA mardom-e dAnA nEkO-st,
 jagh val qaq law' jup QIp qaq puS"     do^sman-e dAnA beh az nAdAn dOst>
                 (Sheikh Muslihuddin Abu Muhammad Abdullah Saadi Shirazi)
Ivan A Derzhanski                             <[email protected]>
H: cplx Iztok bl 91, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria <http://www.math.acad.bg/~iad/>
W: Dept for Math Lx, Inst for Maths & CompSci, Bulg Acad of Sciences


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