tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 31 13:31:34 1997

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Re: Stative verbs



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>Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 08:56:58 -0800 (PST)
>From: Alan Anderson <[email protected]>
>
>[What's the difference between "glow" and "be glowing"?]
>
>ja' 'Iwvan:
>>I meant the semantic difference.  By saying that something means
>>`glow' but not `be glowing' you imply that `glow' and `be glowing'
>>mean different things.  But I fail to see any difference between
>>__Stars glow in the sky_ and _Stars are glowing in the sky_, or
>>_Her eyes glow with indignation_ and _Her eyes are glowing with
>>indignation_.
>
>I don't think there's necessarily a difference between the meanings
>when presented in English, but I certainly make a distinction when
>I'm considering the idea of a "verb expressing a quality or condition"
>as TKD puts it.  "Glow" is an action, not a quality.  We toss the
>term "stative" around here a bit loosely; real linguists already use
>it for a specific meaning, which isn't quite what TKD is describing.
>Perhaps we should start referring to "qualitive" verbs instead?

See, the problem is that we don't have a clear dividing line, and for some
reason people have decided on a particular heuristic and then have
forgotten it's not canonical or at all cut and dried.

Verbs that describe a state/quality can be used adjectivally.  I think we
all agree that this is restrictive, and that not *all* verbs can be so
used.  So far so good.  It's also pretty well-accepted that clearly
transitive verbs cannot be so used, and that leaves the intransitives.  It
is moreover pretty well accepted that not even *all* intransitives can be
used adjectivally, but only some (those "describing a state or quality").
We even see this in canon, where we have "qetbogh loD" in preference to
"?loD qet".

So we agree on quite a lot.  The trouble comes in drawing the line.  Just
WHICH verbs really are the state/quality ones, and which aren't?  And how
do you tell?  Note that Okrand *NEVER* told us the answer.  He *NEVER* said
specifically that verbs which are translated in the lexicon with "be..."
are the verbs which can be used as adjectives.  True, the explanations
occur in the same paragraph, but he says

 "Those notions expressed as adjectives in English (such as _big_, _tired_)
  are expressed by verbs in Klingon (_be big_, _be tired_).  A verb
  expressing a state or quality can be used immediately following a noun to
  modify that noun."

If you read that to mean that Okrand is saying that only verbs translated
as "be ..." can be used as adjectives, that essentially is saying that the
set of Klingon "adjectives" is precisely the same as English ones, which is
pretty hard to believe.  Moreover, "expressed as adjectives in
English"... English has more than one way of expressing things!  As 'Iwvan
says, is {rop} an adjective?  We can express that as "ail" or as "be ill"
in English!  Okrand does not (in the above passage, nor very likely
anywhere) give any special treatment to the particular English words he
happened to use to translate a word in his lexicon.  Remember that
languages do not translate words among them; they translate ideas.  Is the
"idea" of ailing/being ill a "state or quality"?  Depends who you ask, and
what language they speak.  Different languages work it differently (I don't
think you can express "be sick" in Hebrew any way other than adjectivally,
with an auxiliary for other tenses; *maybe* in highly poetic or Biblical
contexts you can conjugate the root.  But I remember once not being sure
which of the two present-tense conjugations to use for "to sleep"; one is
ostensibly "active" and one "stative" [and yet, "be sick" uses the "active"
one!  This may be due to its structure though], and I was told that for "to
sleep" *both* are correct, with some connotational difference; the
"stative" one is considered more delicate or something.)

The point I'm making is that this business about "if it has 'be' in the
English gloss in the dictionary, it can be used adjectivally, and if not it
can't" is totally arbitrary and not based in canon.  It artificially ties
the Klingon "adjectives" to English ones, and specifically the English ones
that Okrand happened to use for each verb.  It's not a *bad* heuristic, and
I can see applying it in one direction (i.e. certainly most verbs that have
"be" do look like they can be used adjectivally), but I would be hesitant
to dun someone else by applying it in the other (i.e. I'm less sure it's
*wrong* to use "wew" adjectivally.  Using the heuristic may be a
conservative approach [though it may not completely be so!] but we mustn't
confuse our own conservativism for Okrand's).

>"Stars glow in the sky" asserts that glowing in the sky is something
>stars *do*.  "Stars are glowing in the sky" likely means that they
>are in the process of performing that action.  But if we consider the
>"are glowing" to be a stative/qualitive concept, it can mean that the
>stars have that quality.

Do stars "glow" any more actively than a traffic light "is red"?  They both
give out photons...

>>> Do you think {Qong} is stative?
>>
>>Yes.  As stative as {rop}, which also denotes a physiological condition,
>>and can also be translated with or without _be_, as in `ail' or `be ill'.
>
>But the Klingon verb {Qong} means "sleep", certainly as much an action
>as "walk".  Do you think {yIt} is stative?  The answer to this question
>will help a lot in determining exactly what you mean by "stative".
>
>>> How about {pum} "fall"?
>>
>>No.  _The tree fell at 3am_ and _The tree was falling at 3am_
>>mean different things.  If a tree is falling, it hasn't fallen yet.
>>There are many other criteria which distinguish events from states.

Hmm.  But "I sleep" doesn't mean the same as "I am sleeping."  This may be
a function of the way English progressive vs. simple present works, but
the difference is less present (it could be argued that it is still present
to some extent) in "I glow" vs. "I am glowing."

~mark

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