tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 06 22:10:27 1999
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Re: transitive verbs
wa'Hu' DraQoS vIjangmeH jIQonchu'lI'. vIlablaHpa' juHwIj
rIQHa'lu'. ngabpu'bogh QInvetlh naQ law' QInvam naQ puS.
I had a comprehensive response to Ben's note drafted yesterday,
but the power failed and it was lost. This is but a pale shadow
of what I intended.
Ben Gibson <[email protected]> writes:
>I was going to let this pass, however I found charghwI'wIj
>recent post rather insulting in parts and felt that I had to
>respond. And since he posted in public, I feel I must do
>likewise.
Don't take it so personally. charghwI' is a crusader for clarity and
tends to be very conservative when dealing with the boundaries of the
language as we know and use it. You proposed an interpretation that
has no basis in what we've been told, essentially making up a meaning
for something. I think charghwI' was right on target when he pointed
that out to you.
[Speaking of "insulting", you do know that saying {charghwI'wIj} is
highly derogatory, don't you? See the next-to-last paragraph on page
25 of The Klingon Dictionary.]
>This started when I asked how can you determine
>whether a verb in tlhIngan Hol is transitive or
>intransitive. I still do not have a complete answer.
There is not a complete answer, but there is an *official* one. The
way to tell whether a verb is transitive or intransitive is to observe
how it is used. We do not have examples of usage for every verb, so
the next best thing is to see how it is defined for us.
>It appears apparent from charghwI'wij post, that since the
>English definition is a transitive or intransitive verb,
>then the resulting tlhIngan verb is also.
That seems quite appropriate to me. If Okrand had intended {Hagh} to
be a transitive verb, he'd have clued us in on what the object of the
verb should be. If he wanted {magh} to be intransitive, he'd probably
have made its definition "engage in treason" instead of "betray".
>This despite the
>repeated reminder from many that tlhIngan is not simply
>"coded English". That the definitions are a one-to- one
>match and not simply as close as can be explained to English
>speakers.
Okrand went to some effort to explain things closely when the weren't
a good match for English concepts. {ghoS}, for example, or {chuH}.
>None of the verbs in either the TKD or the KGT is
>identified as anything other than verbs, and the rules of
>syntax do not prevent such construction as "qaHagh" which
>left me to wonder such a construction would mean.
It's not actually certain that "the rules of syntax" do permit {qaHagh}.
In the explanation of verb prefixes on page 33 of The Klingon Dictionary,
Okrand chooses {Qagh} as an example. The possible prefixes for the verb
are listed, and that list includes only the "no object" prefixes. It is
strongly implied in the next paragraph that {Qong} never has an object.
I believe that {Qong} and {Hagh} behave similarly.
>The only
>conclusion i could think of was "I laugh (at) you."
>charghwI' challenged where I got the (at) at.
I think his challenge was perfectly justified. You presented an idea
which was not obvious from the words you gave.
>It is well known that tlhIngan Hol does not use articles,
>such as a, the, at, etc.
"At" is not an article. It is a preposition. It specifies location.
In tlhIngan Hol, the "at" meaning is carried by the noun suffix {-Daq},
or included in specific verbs like {ghoS} or {Dab}, or associated with
special nouns like {naDev} and {Dat}.
When there is nothing in the sentence to imply "at", there is no reason
to assume that the sentence as an "at" meaning in it. {qaHagh} doesn't
have anything in it to imply a location of any sort.
>And that such distinctions are left
>to the affixes. In light of the fiction that the language is
>a "warrior's tongue", such a construction makes sense to me,
>as the briefest possible meaning.
Why do you assume the appropriate meaning is "I laugh *at* you" instead
of "with you", or "because of you", or even "behind your back"? You've
arbitrarily chosen a meaning, with no real justification.
>The "you" in the above
>example is still the recipient or beneficiary of my
>laughter, of my actions.
If you want "you" to be the recipient or beneficiary, why not use the
grammatical tool that is supplied for such meanings? The noun suffix
{-vaD} indicates exactly what you want.
Here you might have an "out", however. The "prefix trick" lets the
pronominal prefix indicate the beneficiary in some cases, specifically
when the object is third-person and the prefix does not match that object.
You *might* be able to get away with using it when there is *no* object,
but that's extending the grammar a bit beyond what we know to be correct.
>As to whether it should be "with"
>you or "at" you is dependent solely on the motivations of
>the target, of the you in the example. That would have to be
>determined by context, and is largely irrelevant to the
>action. I am still laughing at you, whether you did
>something funny on purpose or not does not change anything
>except your possible response to my laughter. Besides, ram
>meqmey.
But you're still assuming that the object of {Hagh} is the thing toward
which the laughter is directed. It could just as easily be the thing
which caused the laughter, or even a noun which resembles the laughter,
as in "I laughed (like a) hyena" or "I laughed (like a) drunkard." But
since the verb is defined for us simply as "laugh", it's a good bet that
it never has an object at all.
>Rather than "simply making things up", as charghwI' charges,
>my thinking on the meaning of the phrase "qaHagh" is based
>on the above. As Okrand does not identify verbs as either
>transitive or intransitive, I have insufficient evidence to
>suppose that those linguistic concepts mean the same or even
>exist in ta' Hol.
Fine. Ignore the words "transitive" and "intransitive" and focus instead
on what the role of the object is in the sentence. In most cases, we've
got pretty good clues from the simple definition Okrand gives us. When
the idea is something that doesn't translate using a single English word,
the definition tells us how it *does* translate. {DoH} "back away from"
and {baH} "fire (torpedo, rocket, missile)" indicate what the object is
supposed to be. {Hagh} "laugh" uses an English word that doesn't have an
object, so we assume that the Klingon word doesn't have one either.
>charghwI' himself provides an example of a
>verb (Dub) that was previously thought to be intransitive,
>but was later used by Okrand in a transitive manner.
We always recognized that {Dub} was ambiguously defined, and we figured
that we might as well go ahead an use it one way or the other instead of
ignoring it completely until it was explained to us. But the usage that
we now know to be correct was always a possible interpretation of the
definition in TKD. Your extension of {Hagh} to mean "laugh at" is not.
[...]
>Now that is why I am serious about learning this. While I
>respect charghwI' in his skill and knowledge, I do not
>appreciate such attacks, from him or anyone else. If this is
>the way you treats a potential (if such a neophyte as
>myself) then I begin to wonder about your own motivations.
>Do you want others to learn or decide that the only ones who
>speak tlhIngan Hol are bullies. Do you want blind obedience
>to your word? Or do you want others to understand this
>language? Do you find my willingness to defend my point of
>view a personal assault of some kind? Or is it simply a
>matter of my newness to this that brings out this behavior?
I think you're touching on a common problem. Newcomers to this forum
sometimes fail to grasp just how real the Klingon language is, and how
many of the people here are truly excellent speakers of it. In failing
to recognize this, they start proposing interpretations of the grammar
that don't match the "reality" of the language, or they start offering
extensions to words' meanings that aren't supported by the documents we
have at our disposal.
If these same newcomers wanted to learn Spanish, I don't think they'd be
going around proposing that something like "Yo tengo hambré carné" could
mean "I have a hunger (for) meat." That's basically what you did with a
parenthetical "(at)" in your translation of {qaHagh}.
[...]
>You question my knowledge and understanding, that is one
>thing. You question my motivations, my honesty, or my honor,
>well that is different. And has no place in this mailing
>list, or in a lingusitics discussion.
I agree in principle. But I also see much value in a frank discussion of
someone's motivations for trying to reinterpret the meaning of a sentence
from one supported by the known grammar to one based on personal views of
what it *could* mean.
I also must admit that I didn't see a lot in what charghwI' wrote that I
would consider to be a personal attack. That might be because I agreed
with it, but I think it's because he *wasn't* attacking you personally.
One of the curses of having reached a high degree of skill in the language
is that it's not always easy to see things from the point of view of the
newcomer who hasn't yet had the language "click" in his brain. Defending
the way we use tlhIngan Hol from well-meaning but off-target students is a
constant process. You're apparently at a point in your studies where you
believe you know enough to assume things based on your intuition, so we're
going to seem a bit arrogant and stodgy to you until your understanding of
how the language works gets to the next level. It's very hard for me to
imagine this sort of thing happening in other languages. It's a shame it
happens regularly with Klingon.
tagha' rIn. pItlh.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh