tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 09 22:11:54 2000

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RE: Deixis and direction



ja' charghwI':
>It is useful in the study of a verb to understand the
>specific nouns that are valid choices for direct object, indirect object,
>locative, etc.
>
>QanqorvaD SoQ'e' ngaSbogh paq vIjatlh.
>
>How would I say this with {ja'}? Well, I can't.

Nor can you say it with {ghItlh}, or {Sup}, or {togh}.  That has to do with
the meaning of the verbs.  It's not because of anything having to do with
syntax.  Speaking a speech considers a speech.  Telling someone something
does not.  That's all.  And "valid choices" of nouns for non-subject,
non-object roles in a sentence have almost nothing to do with the verb
itself and almost everything to do with the nature of indirect objects,
locatives, etc.

Certain locations are of course inappropriate for certain verbs.  One does
not often cook soup in one's innner ear, for example.  But that's not
something that I think needs to be catalogued anywhere.

>I can say {Qanqor vIja'},
>but I have no way to relate {SoQ} to the verb {ja'}. It is not the direct
>object. It is not the indirect object. In truth, it has no relationship to
>{ja'} at all.

Trying to explain this as verb-specific grammar adds greatly to the burden
of describing the grammar while adding nothing to the general usefulness of
that grammar.  If you forget about everything except subjects and objects
in your quest for understanding of a given verb, you'll probably find that
you have all you need for that specific verb.  All the grammatical
restrictions and prescriptions and exceptions that you want to bring to
bear on the problem will turn out to have nothing to do in the specific
case, and the grammar will be again free to work its simple magic in
general.

>If I were just to look at it in terms of the mechanics of the
>grammar, I could put all these words into a sentence, but they would not
>mean anything because I will have disrespected the functional potentials and
>limits of the specific verb {ja'}.

"Disrespected?"  A novel word, but I think I understand it.  Do you mean
that trying to use the noun {SoQ} with the verb {ja'} fails to respect the
meaning of the verb?  I can agree with that.  But your other arguments
along these lines always seem to imply that the "potentials and limits" are
grammatical in nature, and that's something with which I emphatically do
NOT agree.

>And so, I see this backwards to the way you see it, and I do so for a very
>good reason. I want to speak the language well. Learning the rules is an
>important first step, but we can't stop there. Understanding the verbs and
>the specific nouns that relate to them and the specific grammatical function
>that relates a given noun to a given verb is as fundamental to speaking
>Klingon well as any rule.

Here it seems that you're implying that "grammatical functions" are not
"rules".  I'm not really sure what that last sentence of yours is supposed
to mean.  But I'm willing to guess that it's something that I'd say along
these lines:

"Learning the vocabulary is as important to being able to speak Klingon as
learning the grammar."

I see the task of identifying the appropriate subjects and objects
associated with a given verb as essentially one of vocabulary, not grammar.
I don't see how beneficiaries and locatives and the like are generally
relevant to understanding specific verbs, with the single exception of the
{jaH}-like verbs whose object can be a locative.

-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh




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