tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 18 22:09:29 2000
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Re: Daj (2)
>> "to be interesting" is not just a verb; it's "to be" plus an adjective,
>>and
>> the adjective happens to be a form (present participle) of the transitive
>> verb "to interest".
ja' ter'eS:
>That is true in English, but Klingon isn't English. It has no form of the
>verb "to be", and it has no participles.
Neither of these is strictly true. Pronouns as "to be" mirror many of
English's uses of "to be". And the {-meH} suffix can be seen as a
"gerund-creating" suffix when the resulting verb is used to modify a noun.
ghojmeH taj "learning knife"
puvmeH mIw "flying procedure"
However, none of this changes the fact that the Klingon verb {Daj} means
"be interesting" instead of "interest". In the same way that {ghojmeH taj}
doesn't refer to a knife that learns, {DajmeH paq} doesn't refer to a book
that interests. It means "book in order to be interesting", or "being
interesting book". It doesn't mean "book in order to interest".
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh