tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 08 08:43:17 2001
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-vo'
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: -vo'
- Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 11:42:32 -0500
I'd like some feedback on a concept.
We have the general sense that the locative noun refers to the location
that a typical verb's action takes place. We know that for verbs of motion,
like {ghoS}, {leng}, {jaH}, etc. this is true when the prefix shows no
direct object, but that when the locative noun IS the direct object, then
the motion has the locative noun as the destination.
quSDaq jIba'. I sit in the chair. The location of the chair is the location
of the action of the sitting.
quSDaq jIghoS. I travel along a path on the chair. Maybe I'm skooching from
one side to the other to make room for someone I like a lot to sit in the
chair with me. The whole action occurs in the chair.
quSDaq vIghoS. I'm on my way to the chair.
As an afterthought, without really addressing it, we accepted as given:
lojmItvo' quSDaq vIghoS. "I'm going from the door to the chair." Here
{-vo'} marks the site where the action begins while {-Daq} marks the site
where the motion ends.
Then again, we have these verbs that do not imply motion, but they do imply
multiple locations. One is the site of the action. The other is the target
of the action. These are verbs like:
legh
Qeq
bej
lab
lI'
HIj
lup
baH
Okrand has explained that the locative usually refers to the place where
the action happens, though he has violated this general rule when using
verbs like this in some of his own examples, using the locative for the
target instead of the site of the action. There's also his comment about
the joke, "I shot an elephant in my pajamas..."
So far, {-vo'} has probably been one of the least frequently used suffixes
(next to {-beH}, the king of all underutilized suffixes). What do the rest
of you think of using it to disambiguate the location of the site of these
verbs?
Qe' Hurvo' Qe'Daq Qanqor vIlegh. "I was outside the restaurant and I saw
Krankor in the restaurant."
For years, I've been avoiding that because I wanted {-vo'} to refer to
actual motion, but it makes such a natural counterpart to {-Daq} that it
would make sense as a sort of second locative for verbs that involve two
locatives where one is the site of the action and the other is the target
of the action. I'd favor using {-vo'} as the site marker and {-Daq} as the
target marker.
Reactions?
SarrIS