tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 21 19:51:28 2002
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Re: RE: QeD De'wI' ngermey
On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, David Trimboli wrote:
> From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
> This is all irrelevent: I'm not denying any of this. What you did was to
> say that /QamtaHvIS Hegh/ "He dies while standing" was legal, so therefore
> */QamtaHvIS Hegh/ "death while standing" would be grammatical as the A or B
> element of a law'/puS sentence. I disagree with this: in the first phrase
> /Hegh/ is a verb; in the second it is a noun.
I don't think I ever said that, but if I said something to that effect, I
apologize. I have never thought it legal to modify a noun with a {
-taHvIS } clause, and we're in total agreement on that point.
> > wISoptaHvIS SoH chuS law' jIH chuS puS
> > "When we're eating, you're louder than I am."
> >
> > Would you consider that legal?
>
> Of course. We have a number of examples that show us that a law'/puS
> construction is on equal footing with a main OVS.
Okay, so now my next question is, would you consider this legal:
SoH chuS law' jISoptaHvIS jIH chuS puS
"You're louder than I am when I'm eating."
I'll caveat this right now to say that I'm not so sure -- this makes a
presumption that the law'/puS construction is actually "two sentences put
together", and I'm betting that if I don't feel so great about it, you're
probably vehemently opposed. ;)
> > Right, but /'oy'/ CAN be used adjectivally -- or are you saying it can't?
>
> I'm saying we don't have conclusive evidence, thus I brought up the
> question.
There would seem to be a large number of words in the dictionary that
would "not have conclusive evidence" of their use. Perhaps { 'oy' } is
one of the rarer examples where not only do we not have canon examples of
use, but we have conflicting grammatical implications in the various
English definitions. Given that you see the law'/puS construct, is it not
sufficient to expect it is being used in the proper context?
> I'm not saying it's one or the other. I'm saying we need evidence, and that
> would only come about as (a) an adjectival use, or (b) use in a law'/puS
> sentence. We don't have either.
>
> > I could
> > see some confusion in the TKD E->K section because "hurt" is listed as
> > /'oy'/, and if that's the only translation you look at, you could believe
> > it was the transitive verb form like in "You hurt my feelings".
>
> I'm not talking about the difference between transitivity and
> intransitivity, I'm talking about the difference between action and quality.
I'm not talking about that difference either. I'm talking about the idea
that if you look at all three English translations, "be sore", "ache" and
"hurt", we actually have examples of three different kinds of English
words: Adjective, Intransitive verb, and Transitive Verb (with a common
intransitive construction). Now, I can agree with you, perhaps the
Klingon concept of { 'oy' } is not a quality verb such as { SuD }, and the
possible proof is because English also has non-adjective forms of the
concept. Of course, the contrary argument is also valid; because "ache"
and "hurt" are verbs in English doesn't necessarily mean the Klingon word
is NOT a quality-type verb...
> Here's an example. I'm sure we all agree that /QaQ/ "be good" is a quality.
> What about /QaQchoH/ "become good"? Is that a quality? I assert that it is
> an action: it is something that happens, not a quality. I don't believe
> that */lut QaQchoH/ "becoming-good story" is a grammatical construction,
> even though /lut QaQ/ "good story" is.
I would whole heartedly agree; adding { -choH } or { -moH } immediately
negates any possibility of a qualitative/adjectival verb. Maybe we need
to pin Okrand down on this, because I have to wonder if "a condition"
(Okrand's word in the law'/puS section) could also refer to "a scenario".
Since the Klingon words aren't marked as "quality" or not, who knows what
could actually be possible...
> One more weird entry in TKD: /HeghmoH/ "be fatal." This is probably just a
> convenient look-up for the word "fatal," much as /ghojmoH/ is included for
> anyone who looks up the word "teach." But while "be fatal" is a quality,
> /HeghmoH/ is almost certainly simply /Hegh + -moH/, and that means it's not
> a quality. You probably can't say */yIH HeghmoH/ "fatal tribble"; you have
> to say /HeghmoHbogh yIH/ "tribble which is fatal."
Yeah, I dunno, I was asking the similar question with things like the
suffix ordering of "lo'laH". The basic question comes down to -- when
there is evidence that a definition in the dictionary is the result of
applying a suffix to a given verb, is that for convenience, or is it
"special"? The MO official response for { lo'laH }, it seems, was that it
was "special". I would hazard a guess that things like { chenmoH } and
{ HeghmoH } COULD be considered special (in which case, { yIH HeghmoH }
would be legal), but I'd be inclined to err on the side of safety and
defer to the base verb for pointers in that respect...
> > choQochbe''a'?
>
> Ack! Don'tcha mean /bIQoch'a'?/
I thought only "verbs of saying" had that rule? Or is it just that I
should've said { 'e' choQochbe''a' }? :P
...Paul-who-will-never-get-it-right. :)
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