tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 22 06:40:50 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.


Since [Haj] translates as "dread" and not simply "fear" I suspect that 
Okrand meant it to have the alternate meaning of "dread", such as:  "to 
hold in awe or reverence" and "to anticipate with alarm, anxiety, or 
reluctance" neither of which explicitly imply fear.

You could anticipate death with alarm or reluctance and still not fear it.

HetaQ

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