tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 30 04:52:22 2004

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Re: Using object prefixes with "intransitive" verbs

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

ghItlhpu' SuStel:

>I'm not sure if the concept of "beneficiary" equals the concept of 
>"indirect
>object"; I suspect it doesn't exactly match.  For instance,
>wo'vaD jagh vISuv
>I fight the enemy for the Empire.

You're right, SuStel. "Beneficiaries" in Klingon appear to be what's called 
"benefactive" nouns, and they definitely don't exactly map to dative objects 
in English. Sometimes they do, but oftentimes they don't. I study Ubykh as a 
hobby. This language uses a well-defined benefactive marker that shows up a 
lot, so I feel that I'm at least basically qualified to discuss what a 
"beneficiary" is. Now's when I can maybe return the favour for all you've 
taught me about Klingon over the years. :D

In Ubykh, a benefactive argument is one for whose benefit something is done. 
This may sound a little simplistic, and perhaps too obvious. However, if you 
do something to someone, you have a reason for it. This reason is often that 
the other person benefits from it. In some cases, the beneficiary maps to 
English dative objects (a Klingon example is {yaSvaD jabbI'ID vIlab} "I send 
the message to the officer"). Here, the dative object is also the 
beneficiary, so this works.

But the beneficiary does not always map to a dative object. {wo'vaD jagh 
vISuv}, for instance. In this, it's a true "benefactive": "I fight the enemy 
for the Empire's benefit".

Now, if one were to try and say {yaSvaD jorwI' vIngeH}, I would interpret 
that as "I send the explosives for the officer" (i.e., as a favour to the 
officer). This is where you need another suffix: one should probably use 
{yaSDaq jorwI' vIngeH} for "I send the explosives to the officer". Ubykh 
actually has a separate "malefactive" prefix for this. Benefactives per se 
only apply in the case of positive effect - the word means "doing good" in 
Latin.

I don't know whether the same would apply in Klingon, but my guess is that 
this would be the case, simply because of the possible misinterpretation of 
{yaSvaD jorwI' vIngeH}. (Although what one person sees as doing good isn't 
always interpretable as that by others, qar'a'? :D)

Savan.

QeS lagh

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