tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 05 07:55:14 2001

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re: Grammar Highlight Each Day (Voice)

In response to another suggestion that this might not be 
all that helpful as stated for beginners, I'd like to 
elaborate. I hope this is more helpful. The suffix {-lu'} 
is commonly misunderstood by beginners, so this is a good 
topic to review every now and then.

>Disclaimer:  These highlights shed a different slant than TKD grammar section 
>does.  They are not intended to be the authoritative teaching tool, only a 
>help.  Where I do not quote TKD, I inject opinions, researched, but not 
>attested to completely by the inventor of our glorious language, Dr. Marc 
>Okrand.

>Today's highlight states that the Klingon language does not recognize voice.  
>English has active voice and passive voice.  Klingon only has verbs without 
>distinguishing active voice or passive voice.

The confusing element here is that it sounds almost as if 
Klingon has active and passive voice but doesn't 
distinguish between them. Klingon has only the active voice 
(fitting of their culture). There is no passive voice as 
such in Klingon.

>There is a verb suffix, type 6 {-lu'} which is not passive voice!!!!!!  
>Rather, it means that the subject of the sentence is not specified.

The Type 6 verb suffix {-lu'} indicates, in Klingon, that 
the subject is unspecified. The prefix does some 
interesting things when you use {-lu'}, which I'll describe 
in more detail later in this post, but for the most part, 
it simply means that we don't know who or what the subject 
is, and frankly, we don't care. TKD includes an example 
something like:

quSvamDaq ba'lu''a'? "Is this seat taken?"

In general, there are two common ways of translating 
Klingon verbs with {-lu'}, though specific sentences are 
sometimes better translated in less literal, more English 
styled ways.

One way is to use the rather archaic "one" as a pronoun. 
The above translation would then be "Is it that one sits in 
this chair?"

The other common English translation uses the passive 
voice. "Is this seat sat in?" Hmmm. Let's get a better 
example. For that, I need to talk about prefixes.

Any time you have a direct object for a verb with {-lu'}, 
the verb prefix essentially gets the roles of subject and 
object reversed. In other words:

vIlegh = "I see him."

vIleghlu' = "I am seen" or "One sees me."

Neither of these English translations exactly convey the 
meaning of the Klingon since English simply lacks the idea 
of an indefinite subject. The two ways to deal with this 
are to either use a vague pronoun for the subject (in this 
case "one") or use the passive voice.

It is not the case that {-lu'} is the same as the passive 
voice. It is just that one of several variations of how the 
passive voice works in English matches one of several 
variations of the way {-lu'} works in Klingon.

I have personally been tempted to just say, "Aww, heck. 
They really do the same thing. Let's just say they are 
equivalent." I was wrong.

The reason I was wrong is that the passive voice can 
express the specific subject, as in:

"I was seen by the guard." There is no way to translate 
that into Klingon using {vIleghlu'}.

Meanwhile, the Klingon {-lu'} can be used on a verb with no 
direct object. There is no way to translate {ba'lu'} in to 
English using the passive voice. It means "One sits." There 
is nothing being sat, so the passive voice doesn't match 
this case at all.

Meanwhile, it is perfectly legitimate to translate 
{vIleghlu'pu'} as "I have been seen," which is passive 
voice in the English.

In general, the way the prefix works is that when there is 
a direct object for the verb with {-lu'}, the prefix is set 
up as if that direct object (of the sentence) was the 
subject (in the prefix). In this case, the direct object 
(of the sentence) is first person. "One sees me," or "I am 
seen." In the English, the direct object of the action of 
the verb is first person singular, active voice "me" or 
passive voice "I". Klingon then uses the third person as 
the prefix's direct object, so you get {vIleghlu'}. If I 
were to say "You are seen," or "One sees you," it would be 
{Daleghlu'}. "One sees them," or "They are seen," becomes 
{luleghlu'}.

Meanwhile, if there is no direct object, the null prefix is 
used. {ba'lu'}. "One sits". {bIrlu'.} "One is cold."

I hope this sheds some light on this for beginners. I'd 
particularly appreciate feedback from real beginners, both 
to the original post and this one so that those of us drawn 
toward helping beginners get a better idea of what is 
genuinely helpful, since that is our goal, after all.

We can simulate the beginner experience in our minds, but 
without a little confirmation, we just can't be sure.

I'm also open to comment from our BG, if he feels that I'm 
in any way making his task here more challenging. I have no 
interest in disrupting his good work.

>peHruS

SarrIS

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