tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 07 21:16:40 2001

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Re: the word `dative'



> ja' Jiri Baum <[email protected]>:
> >What I meant was that this is one of those words where translating the
> >etymology really does help. It comes from the Latin word ``give'', so
> >the paradigm example (case example, I guess) should involve that word.

> >You will probably keep using the word ``dative'', but it's good to know
> >where it comes from.

Alan Anderson:
> I see three real problems with using the term "dative" here.  First, it's
> an unfamiliar term for most people who want to learn Klingon. 

True.

> Second, it only applies to a part of what the Klingon noun suffix {-vaD}
> can indicate.

OK, though I'm not sure which parts wouldn't be covered - and certainly
other languages name cases for their primary use even when they have
secondary meanings.

> Third, in its "indirect object" sense, {-vaD} is being used to indicate
> the *recipient* of the benefit of the action,

Yes, that is the meaning of dative - it marks the recipient of the giving
(or other verb).

> so the translated "giving case" sounds backwards 

True - I should've probably phrased it differently. My bad.

> >And as a native speaker of an inflected language, it amazes me sometimes
> >the convolutions people will go through to avoid saying ``suffix 5 is
> >the case marker and -vaD is the dative case''.

> It's not quite as simple as that.  In Klingon, many "cases" are indicated
> by position [*] rather than by suffix,

That's not in itself a problem. In many languages the nominative also
serves as a vocative (eg Russian, IIRC), or they might be distinct but
mostly identical (Latin).

> and there are times where a type 5 suffix isn't really a case marker.

I guess. One could either pretend that they are cases (the topic case?) or
say that some v.sfx.5 are case markers and others are whatever.

> The real trouble is that most people who speak English have no concept of
> what a "case marker" is, and explaining Klingon using grammatical terms
> which are most useful for a much more complicated language like Latin is
> a bit intimidating.

That sounds like it's probably the real reason.


Jiri
-- 
Jiri Baum <[email protected]>
I can't figure out whether keeping all my friends in a tickle file would be
horribly impersonal or over-familiar.


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