tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 25 00:04:46 1997

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Re: understanding {-lu'}

-----Original Message-----
From: Robyn Stewart <[email protected]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, November 24, 1997 1:52 PM
Subject: Re: understanding {-lu'}

>If I could think of a reason to want to use an indirect object for
>this meaning and not simply say:
>
>jagh yaS luHoH tlhIngan negh
>
>I would say
>
>tlhIngan neghmo' jagh yaS HoHlu'
>
>This could also refer to the enemy officer being killed by his own
>superior because he had Klingon soldiers in his tent, but the English
>"The enemy officer was killed by the Klingon soldiers" could just as
>well mean that he was killed while they were standing nearby (as in
>"... killed by that bush.")

This sounds too much like a declaration that switching the subject to {-mo'}
and using {-lu'} is always acceptable.  I don't think you actually mean
this.  Besides, if I read {tlhIngan neghmo' jagh yaS HoHlu'}, the exactly
meaning would be entirely context-based.  If I read {jagh yaS luHoH tlhIngan
negh}, I know the correct meaning without any context.

Furthermore, the vagueness of the Klingon is not paralleled by your English
analogy.  "By" is used in the first sense as "near to," and the second one
as "through the agency or efficacy of."  The vagueness of the Klingon is
simply that you don't know the context which caused the Klingon soldiers to
perform the action, but the meaning of the sentence itself doesn't change.

>And FWIW I consider {-lu'} to be passive voice. It does what English
>passive voice does: allows an action to be described without being
>specific about its subject.

One may also do this in English with the impersonal "one" (see this
sentence, for example).  This is not passive, but the subject is
non-specific.

Here's what the American College Dictionary, 1966, has to say about
"passive":

adj. (8.) Gramm.  (a.) (in some languages) denoting a voice, or verb
inflection, in which the subject is represented as being acted upon. [...]
(b.) denoting a structure similar to this in meaning, as English "he is
carried."

In Klingon sentences with {-lu'}, the subject is NOT represented as being
acted upon.  {-lu'} means there IS no subject!

I don't see any reason to label Klingon verbs with {-lu'} as "passive."  The
*translation* into English may be passive, but that's totally irrelevant.
We're dealing with the grammar of Klingon, not the mechanics of translation.

At the very least, "passive" is the wrong word to describe {-lu'}
formations.  "Passive" implies inactivity or acquiescence, but all the
Klingon suffix is doing is telling you that there's no specific subject to
worry about.  That's not weak, that's just a fact.

>  Klingon passive voice happens to have an
>ability English passive voice doesn't: it can describe an action that
>has no object.
> I believe the term "passive voice" isn't in TKD
>because Marc Okrand was making an effort to avoid grammar
>terminology.

Marc Okrand DOES use the phrase "passive voice," on page 39, where he says
"Verbs with {-lu'} are often translated into the English passive voice."

SuStel
Stardate 97900.1

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