tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 10 09:54:09 1999
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Re: Ordering food
jIja'pu':
>> Um, no. {-vaD} is the syntactic marker for the beneficiary of an action.
>> In many English sentences, the indirect object is the beneficiary, so it
>> is appropriate *in those sentences* to use {-vaD}.
ja' peHruS:
>ghunchu'wI',
>
>Please refer to TKD Addendum p. 180, section 6.8. What is the section title?
The section title is "6.8. Indirect objects", of course.
>What does the "fine print" say about IOs and beneficiaries?
What "fine print"? The text proper begins with a sentence that explains
what the section is talking about:
"While the object of the verb is the recipient of the action,
the indirect object may be considered the beneficiary."
The text then goes on to explain that Klingon grammar puts {-vaD} on these
beneficiaries. Isn't that what I said above?
For a counterexample, try translating a sentence like "He makes the house
white." What's the indirect object? What's the recipient of the action?
It's not as formulaic as you implied in your original note, where you said:
>...As I read TKD, I discover
>{-vaD} is the syntactic marker of "indirect object."
My point is that {-vaD} is just the syntactic marker for "beneficiary".
TKD 6.8 clarifies that indirect objects are considered beneficiaries, but
that does not mean that all things marked with {-vaD} are indirect objects.
For example, {vavwI'vaD HablI' vItI'pu'} doesn't translate easily into an
English sentence having an indirect object.
-- ghunchu'wI'