tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 21 20:38:40 1997
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Re: some tidbits qororvo'
ja' 'Iwvan:
>> ... Specifically, you can't just "fear" in a vacuum: you have
>> to be afraid to do something in particular.
>
>Not necessarily. You can be afraid of doing something (which is what
>{-vIp} is for), or you can be afraid of someone else doing something
>(which is when the full verbs come handy).
I'm not at all comfortable with the translation "afraid of" for
the suffix {-vIp}. It's supposed to be "afraid to", right? It
might be a trivial point, but "afraid of doing" uses phrasing
that doesn't really match the way tlhIngan Hol says things.
>> [...] (it would be even more interesting, and still quite believable
>> in a language, for there to be no verb Haj: if *all* fear was fear of
>> doing something.)
>
>Ah, but it isn't. Even fear of being killed can't be expressed in such
>a way, since Klingon has no passive.
It's been a while since this was posted, but when I saw it I
immediately thought {vIHoHlu' 'e' vISIQvIp}.
-- ghunchu'wI'