tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 25 14:19:52 2002
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Adverbs, Adverbials, Whatever
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Adverbs, Adverbials, Whatever
- Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 15:18:15 -0400
Let me see if I can make this "adverb/adverbial" thing clear.
THE KLINGON DICTIONARY has a list of "adverbials." The use of this word
"adverbial" is not the same as the normal English grammatical meaning. In
English grammar, an adverbial is anything that modifies the way an action is
performed. This is not what the word "adverbial" means when speaking about
Klingon. In Klingon, the word "adverbial" is used to distinguish a specific
set of /chuvmey/ by function from other /chuvmey/ that do not modify the
verb.
Why did Okrand choose the word "adverbial" instead of "adverb," when it
appears to be an incorrect use of the word? Probably because Klingon
linguists do not actually distinguish between adverb-type /chuvmey/ and
other /chuvmey/; this distinction is an English-speaking one. So there is
no actual part of speech "adverb" in Klingon, so the word "adverbial" was
chosen to mean "those /chuvmey/ that act in an adverbial sort of way." (And
Okrand does not worry much about correct grammatical terms in TKD.)
So, when speaking about Klingon, the word "adverbial" ALWAYS means those
words in the dictionary that have their part of speech defined as "adv." It
does NOT mean "any word that modifies the action of a verb."
There are a number of words in Klingon that are listed more than once, as
they are listed with more than one part of speech. An example is /batlh/.
There is /batlh/ "honor (n)" and /batlh/ "with honor (adv)." Whether these
are two separate words or the same word used in more than one part of speech
isn't clear. However, the parts of speech ARE spelled out for us, and we
must assume they are correct. If we don't see a word listed as a part of
speech, then it isn't that part of speech.
The word /naDev/ "here (n)" is only listed as a noun. It is not listed in
the dictionary as an adverbial. It can be used in any place that a noun can
be used. It happens to be exceptional in that it is one of three nouns that
can be used as a locative sort of noun without having /-Daq/ attached to it.
/naDev/ is not an adverbial (remember, anytime we talk about Klingon
adverbials, we do NOT mean "any word that modifies the action of the verb."
We mean those words whose part of speech is classified in TKD as
"adverbial."
This discussion has all been a lot of confusion over terms. It's clear
everyone knows what he is talking about under his own terms. In my opinion,
we shouldn't alter the terms used in TKD (though using additional terms for
discussion purposes is appropriate so long as everyone understands them --
they should be defined clearly and frequently).
SuStel
Stardate 2564.8
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