tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 18 22:02:37 2002
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RE: "indefinite subject" and "passive voice"
- From: "DloraH" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: "indefinite subject" and "passive voice"
- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 22:02:17 -0400
- Importance: Normal
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
> I heard someone say that if the object of a sentence habitually
> comes first
> in a language, then all the verbs must be passive, because logically, the
> subject should come first. The example which was cited was the sentence
>
> puq legh yaS
>
> which was translated as "The child is-seen-by the soldier".
The first thing that came to my mind is that you're still thinking in
English. At first I thought klingon was simply -backwards- and had to think
like the sentence above. Now I find myself many times rearranging my
english sentences into klingon order when I'm not dealing with klingon...
and not saying things like "is-seen-by".
Logical? I have to deal with illogical humans everyday. Because humans are
illogical, maybe their view of "logical" word order is... illogical.
DloraH, BG