tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 26 15:05:42 2004

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RE: Using object prefixes with "intransitive" verbs

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

jIghItlhpu':

>I think the meaning of "expect" that Paul means is not the same as what
>Heather means. There are two meanings of "expect": "She's expecting a 
>baby".
>If a woman is "expecting" a baby in English, she's not "expecting that she
>will have" one (or "being suspicious" that she will have one), she is
>"awaiting" it. I think this falls right into line in Klingon: {yatlh be';
>ghu loS} means "the woman is pregnant; she's waiting for/expecting the
>baby", whereas {yatlh be'; ghu pIH}, as I understand it, means "the woman 
>is
>pregnant; she suspects that it is a baby". taQ 'e' vIHar.

mujangpu' De'vID:

>Well "wait (for)" and "expect" aren't necessarily the same.   You can
>certainly expect something without waiting for it, and wait for
>something without expecting it.

But you *can* wait for something by expecting it. It doesn't have to be that 
way, but that's one of the connotations I see behind the English word.

taH:

><HuchwIj vIloS> "I'm waiting for my money"
><HuchwIj vIpIH> "I'm expecting my money"
>In the first case, my money may come at some indefinite point in
>the future, but I may not have any expectation of getting it any
>time soon.  In the second case, I may believe that my money will
>be deposited in my mailbox soon, but I may not be sitting by my
>mailbox waiting for it.

To be honest, I can't quite see the difference semantically. While I don't 
disbelieve you, could you explain your reasoning? I'm just a little 
confused, that's all.

taH:

><pIloS> "We're waiting for you"
><pIpIH> "We're expecting you"
>If the hotel manager says the first sentence, it sounds like they've
>actually been standing there waiting for you.  Perhaps you said you'd
>show up at some time and you were late.   If he says the second
>sentence, as they do on the CK tape, then they know you're coming,
>but it's not as if they've stopped everything else to await your
>arrival.

I must disagree in this case. Correct me if I'm wrong, but at the end of 
"Mary Poppins", when George Banks is summoned to the bank to answer to the 
bank's manager, doesn't the bank manager say "We've been expecting you"? 
Whether that's the case or not, that's what I picture when I hear {pIpIH}. 
:D In that case, it was late at night when the meeting of the bank's 
partners was convened; they didn't appear to have any other purpose than 
waiting for George Banks. In this situation, I wouldn't have any problem 
with either {pIpIH} or {pIloS}.

taH jabbI'IDwIj:

>That's just my opinion, but that's what the definitions point towards in my
>mind. There's nothing wrong that I can see with translating {loS} as
>"expect". We should think about how it might translate from Klingon to
>English, not just the other way around. As I said, I see some rather 
>bizarre
>connotations to the sentence {yatlh be'; ghu pIH}. She suspects maybe a
>targ? {{:D

mujangqa'pu' De'vID:

>I see the two as having slightly different connotations:
><yatlh; be'Hom loS> "She's pregnant; she's waiting for a girl"
><yatlh; be'Hom pIH> "She's pregnant; she's expecting a girl"
>In the first case, maybe the pregnant woman has already had a few sons
>and now wants a daughter.  In the second case, perhaps the doctor
>has performed an ultrasound and told her she's carrying a girl, but
>she has no preference either way.

If I understand this correctly, it's not so far from my examples:
{yatlh; be'Hom loS} "She's pregnant; she's waiting for a girl"
{yatlh; be'Hom pIH} "She's pregnant; she's expecting a girl"

In the second case, it still seems to me like the unnamed woman *suspects* 
she's going to have a girl because the doctor told her so. That's how I read 
"expect" in this case. In fact, she could get a nasty surprise and find out 
that the baby's a boy when she has it.

Whichever way, I still think that there are some situations where {loS} and 
{pIH} overlap. It might help if we knew whether {pIH} "expect" was 
etymologically related to {pIH} "be suspicious", or if the two were merely 
homophones.

Savan.

QeS lagh

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