tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 09 08:13:07 2001
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: -vo'
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: -vo'
- Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 11:12:50 -0500
I see several responses, none to one another and all to me, so I'll compile
them all in one response here.
>From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: -vo'
>Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 14:34:45 CST
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>>SarrIS:
>>I'd like some feedback on a concept.
>
>[pe']
>
>> 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..."
>
>I don't have a list of the examples you're referring to here,
>so it's quite likely that parts or all of my opinion I give below
>is turned upside down or inside out by Okrandian canon...
That sort of churning happens here all the time. Feel no angst.
>> 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?
>
>for clarification: you would like the above example "better" than
>e.g. {Qe' HurDaq jIHtaHvIS 'ej Qe'Daq ghaHtaHvIS QanQor'e',
>QanQor vIlegh} because it is much more concise, qar'a'?
>(Not e.g. because there is anything wrong grammatically with what I wrote?)
True.
>I'm not sure of how generally my opinion is on this,
>so I'll look at the verbs you've listed case by case:
>- legh, bej: it works similarly in German, so I'd understand it,
>but I don't really see the location of the "seer" or "watcher"
>as either the site or the origin of the action of seeing.
>This is probably similar to how you perceive the site of
>pouring a liquid to be one of the containers (I don't recall
>which one), whereas I don't. A matter of opinion until/unless
>we have canon examples one way or another.
Motion implies two different locations for one subject or object, the
difference being that of time. At different times, the subject or object is
located at each of these two locations and the verb of motion is the
connector between these points in space/time. For {legh} and {bej}, you
again have one verb that stitches together two different locations, though
there is no time separation, and the subject and object are different
nouns. The direct object is the thing seen or watched. The subject is the
one seeing or watching. Just as motion always implies different locations,
so does seeing and watching.
So, where is the action happening? Generally, action happens with verbs
where the subject is. Generally speaking, for the vast majority of verbs,
if you have a {-Daq} marked locative, it is giving the location of the
subject when the action of the verb occurs.
That is what is striking about verbs like {bej} and {legh}. Suddenly, when
we have a noun with {-Daq}, we no longer are sure the subject is located by
the locative. In fact, it seems that in all cases I can remember, we've
applied the {-Daq} to the location of the direct object. That is the
disturbing thing that got me on this idea in the first place. If the
locative gives the location of the direct object, then what can give the
location of the subject?
Suddenly {-vo'} seemed like the best candidate. "From my perspective..."
"When viewed from afar..." "From my window, I can see the mountains in the
East." Qorwaghvo' chanDaq HuD'a' vIleghlaH. Where am I? Where are the
mountains?
>another point: if you don't want to specify the location of
>the subject, what is left, {Qe'Daq QanQor vIlegh} either
>means something completely different, namely that both me
>and QanQor are in the restaurant, or it looks suspiciously like
>you're seeing "QanQor in the restaurant", i.e. a N-N construction
>with a type 5 on the first noun.
Note that Type 5 noun suffixes are not allowed on the first word of a noun
noun construction. This may be the reason.
>- Qeq: I'd readily accept a N-Daq as the target of the aiming.
>but again, I can't see the subject as the origin of the aiming.
>Maybe something similar to the Deixis thing we know from verbs
>like {Sum} is at work here, and you need two sentences: one to
>establish your location, another to say what you're aming at.
If the subject is not the origin of the aiming, then what is? The action of
aiming definitely takes place at the subject. The object just sits there,
typically unwittingly being targeted.
>- lab, lI': I'm probably mixing these two up completely...
>I feel that {lab} always (via Deixis?) implies transmission
>towards me, one can indicate an explicit origin using -vo';
>{lI'} otoh, implies transmission away from me, with an
>explicit target indicated by -Daq. It may be the other way round
>for all I know...
Yes. They are reversed. The wording of the definitions is very poor, but I
figured it out from the dialog in ST3. {lab} is "transmit data (away from a
place)". The subject is at the place data is being transmitted from. This
is uploading or sending data out. I can remember this because {lab} is
probably a pun for the English word "lob", which is what we call the kind
of toss that an American football player makes when the ball doesn't go
far, does go fairly high and moves slowly, so it is easy to catch. "The
quarterback lobs the ball to the tight end..."
{lI'} means "transmit data (to a place)". The subject is at the place being
transmitted to. This is downloading or receiving the data. Note that each
of the glosses as written can easily be interpreted both ways, though one
is obviously written to be the opposite of the other. Every time data is
transmitted, it is always going from a place and to a place at the same
time. The places are just different, and this gloss doesn't really tell you
which place the person is who is doing the transmitting.
>- HIj: in my mind works like lI', in that delivery is away
>from me, a target may be explicitly denoted by -Daq
Likely, the subject accompanies the object through the delivery. The target
of the delivery gets the locative. The origin (the location where the cargo
and deliverer start out) seems like a logical place for {-vo'}. This likely
does imply motion.
>- lup: this is IMO quite clearly a case where you can indicate
>an origin with -vo' and a destination with -Daq; no doubt in my mind.
Even when it is by Star-Trek styled transporer, which doesn't really
involve motion? You just disappear from one place and reappear in another.
>- baH: again, I shoot the thingies away from me, a target may
>be indicated by -Daq.
Note again, it is "away from me". {-vo'}
>I realize now: wherever I said "away from me" or "towards me"
>I should really have said "away from the SUBJECT" and
>"towards the SUBJECT"...
Fine.
>in summary: I don't think your idea will lead to misunderstandings,
>but unless canon proves me wrong, this usage doesn't go along well
>with how I see -vo', and even though I realize that challenging
>unreflected perceptions of what -vo' is good for was at least one
>of your points, I'm still a little sceptical.
>
> Marc Ruehlaender
> aka HomDoq
> [email protected]
Even I am a LITTLE skeptical. That's why I'm asking for feedback. Likely,
this is an idea I will give up on, but it certainly seems to make sense.
>From: Pillow <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: -vo'
>Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 13:09:22 -0900
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>SarrIS wrote:
>
>> 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 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.
>but could your sentece also mean, "I'm sitting in the chair (with wheels)
and
>scooting around"?
Good question. Certainly, context would help determine if the chair were an
environment or a vehicle.
>if so how could one disambiguate between the concepts?
>pa'Daq quSDaq vIghoS. Is this sentence correct?
I think it is correct. Okrand has definitely strung out locatives like this
on one of the Skybox cards. Meanwhile I'd disambiguate it one of several
other ways:
quS vIlIgh.
pa'Daq quS vIlIgh.
quSDaq vIba'taHvIS raSvetlh ghoS quSvam.
>quS qoDDaq vIghoS. Maybe I'm climbing into a big chair....
jIH DopDaq ba'meH bangwI' quSDaq latlh Dop vIghoS.
>Or must the "inside" refer to INSIDE , as like a bug digging into the
>upholstery?
That would be my first guess.
>napqu' mu'vetlh, 'ach mumISmoHlaH.
pIj qaS ghu'vam.
> pIl'o'
Chris had a similar notion, likely addressed in the reply to pIl'o'.
>From: Alan Anderson <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: -vo'
>Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 22:47:03 -0500
>In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>ja' SarrIS:
>>[...]
>>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."
>Urk. At first reading, I get two contradictory impressions. The first is
>that it sounds...wrong. The second is that it seems to say what you want
>it to anyway, even though it does it without quite being grammatical.
I agree that it initially sounds wrong because I'd always interpreted
{-vo'} to strictly refer to motion. Suddenly, it occured to me that it may
be more of a counterpart to {-Daq}, which is not restricted to motion, but
refers to locations for other kinds of action.
>>For years, I've been avoiding that because I wanted {-vo'} to refer to
>>actual motion,...
>That's pretty much how it's described in TKD: "This suffix ... is used
>only when action is in a direction away from the noun suffixed with
>{-vo'}." I can perhaps entertain a distinction between "motion" and
>"action", but a quick look doesn't turn up any obvious examples of {-vo'}
>without motion.
Exactly. Take a verb like {bej}. If I watch you, the action of watching is
occurring from me to you, even though there is no motion. The same for
aiming or looking. There is an origin and a target, just like there is for
motion, only these are actions that do not involve physical motion from
subject to object. The key word here is "action", chosen rather than
"motion", which has been our interpretation up to this point.
>>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.
>Note the primary definition of {-Daq}: "This suffix indicates that
>something is happening (or has happened or will happen) in the vicinity of
>the noun to which it is attached." This sounds like exactly what you want
>to use {-vo'} for. While I can understand how you think it could work, I
>believe TKD tells us it *doesn't* work that way.
That also is exactly what I've been thinking all this time. Meanwhile, it
was exactly this wording that bothered me so much when Okrand said that
this joke works in Klingon just as well as it does in English:
"I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How it got into my pajamas, I'll never
know."
But the action of shooting occurs at the location of the subject, not the
target. And all of these verbs of motion with locatives as direct objects
similarly are using the locative to denote the "wrong" place, since it is
being used as the target of the motion, not the action of the motion, which
occurs where the subject is BEFORE it reaches the target.
I see this use of {-vo'} as an opportunity to resolve this area where
{-Daq} has not behaved itself in canon. It has not fulfilled its role
according to its definition. But it could, if {-vo'} were allowed to fill
in where {-Daq} was supposed to go for these peculiar verbs. Okrand has
talked about "ditransitive verbs", though he seemed to resolve the problem
with the use of {-vaD} such that there really aren't any ditransitive verbs
in Klingon. He has not talked about verbs that involve more than one
location. Perhaps {-vo'} can solve this the way that {-vaD} solved
ditransitives.
>>Reactions?
>It gets the idea across, but only because there's only one way to interpret
>it. I have a very strong feeling that a native Klingon speaker would
>understand it in a similar way I would understand "Drive me for the
>airport."
You may well be right. I'm not quite convinced either way just yet.
>-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh
SarrIS