tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 28 14:33:37 2004

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RE: Using object prefixes with "intransitive" verbs

...Paul ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, De'vID jonwI' wrote:
> Right.  Perhaps *most* of the time, "wait" and "expect" overlap.
> But that's not necessarily so.

Leave it to me to pick the worst possible example to try to make my point.
:)

The original question, IIRC, wasn't really about /pIH/ vs. /loS/, it was
about what the object of /loS/ was (or something like that).  Basically, I
think there is often some confusion about what the object of a Klingon
verb is, because using the exact English translation, we find the word has
no object.

/loS/ is an example of this, it's translated "wait (for)" but the English
"wait" in this case is intransitive; it usually used (as noted) with the
preposition "for", and the object of the preposition in English is what in
Klingon would be the object of the verb itself.  (Note:  I'm not certain
my phrase "object of the preposition" is grammatically correct there, but
I hope you get the idea)

This whole /pIH/ thing came up because I likened the transitive Klingon
verb /loS/ to the English transitive "expect", and hence confusion and
discussion ensued.  :)

Perhaps another example (sure to get me into trouble) might be /lIt/ or
"get on (to)"  Before I get introuble and say this could be likened to
"board" (for which we already have /tIj/!), I'll just say that this is an
example where in English, we would use a verb ("get") and an preposition
("on"), in Klingon, is a single transitive verb:

"I got on the roof"
beb vIlItta'

Of course, this is another crappy example, because there's going to be
discussion about whether or not the locative /-Daq/ is used (although I
think we have a canon pattern emerging where /-Daq/ is not necessary if
the verb indicates motion...)

Okay, I'm out of examples...

...Paul

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