tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 21 15:46:18 2000

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Re: ghargh ngaSwI'

On Sun, 20 Feb 2000 13:57:45 EST [email protected] wrote:
> In a message dated 2/19/2000 1:48:28 PM Central Standard Time, 
> [email protected] writes:
> 
> << mumeyvam vIQochbe'. Huvqu' Hoch. >>
> 
> Recently I have been struggling to translate a lot of your messages.  But I 
> have discovered that there has been a lot of discussion about transitivity of 
> words published in the dictionary originally as if they might be 
> intransitive.  The examples you have been discussing are <<qIm>> and <<'Ij>>. 
>  Someone has said that Mr. Okrand used them transitively in ST5.  I will have 
> to re-watch that movie and listen carefully.
> 
> Here is my point:  Immediately I began wondering about other words that 
> people writing on this list have been using only intransitively, 
> <<Qoch/Qochbe'>> coming to mind first.  Now I see that the founder of KLI 
> does use <<Qochbe'>> transitively.
> 
> mochwI' vIQochbe'.  muDuQ mIwvam.  *descriptive verbs* yaHlu'DI' chaq *be 
> transitive*laH tlhIngan Hol Hoch wotmey.  And, we can make descriptive verbs 
> transitive by adding the suffix <<-moH,>> qar'a'?
> 
> I have always had the feeling that, unlike English, Klingon verbs may be only 
> a single syllable but convey the complete meaning of the verb action.  
> English uses a lot of verbs plus prepositions, according to our English 
> grammar teachers.  But, if the teachers realize that the preposition--I will 
> call it an additional particle to a verb--is part of the verb, we all will 
> not have to be so concerned with recasting English sentences in order to 
> avoid "dangling prepositions."

The point you seem to miss is that verbs can take many 
different kinds of objects, linked to the verb by 
prepositions in English and typically by noun suffixes or 
special locative nouns in Klingon, but each word has a much 
more restricted set of direct objects. The selection of 
this restricted list of direct objects is part of the 
definition of the word. We have the same thing in English.

You can orbit a planet.

You can go around a planet.

You can't go a planet.

You can orbit in a spaceship.

That doesn't mean that you could express that same idea by 
just saying "I orbit my spaceship." Now, you've completely 
changed the meaning. You can't just say, "Well, you know 
what I meant, so I don't have to recast anything to get it 
right."

Prepositions, in English, tell you the relationship between 
the action of a verb and a set of nouns that are not the 
direct object. The direct object often has a relationship 
to the action of the verb very similar to that of a 
prepositional phrase, as in "My ship orbits Earth." We know 
that the relationship between Earth and the action of 
orbiting is one of position, so with a different verb, we'd 
use the preposition "around". Meanwhile, to say, "My ship 
orbits around Earth" is odd and redundant.

The definition of a Klingon word involves the limitation of 
what kind of noun can act as direct object. If you make 
presumptions about what kind of noun can act as direct 
object, then you similarly are making presumptions about 
the definition of the word.

The more presumptions we make, the more likely we are wrong.
 
> Xardana

charghwI'

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