tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat May 22 07:00:23 2004

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Re: paghHu'/paghleS

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

ghItlhpu' SuStel:
>This theory is not attested in any canonical Klingon we know.  It's
>possible, but there is no evidence to support it.  It's also possible that
>the nuance you're describing doesn't exist.

jang Paul:
>I do like the nuance described, it's very "logical", but I agree with you,
>that there is nothing to really support it.

I like the theory of this nuance, too. However, I don't see any logic behind 
the labels. To me, ??{paghHu'} and ??{paghleS} would both mean precisely 
what they seem to: "zero days ago/from now" = "today".

taH:
>In fact, I would argue that there is just as much to defeat the proposal
>-- namely, that we do know the Klingon number system originally did not
>have a concept of 'zero', so it's quite likely that /paghHu'/ is
>nonsensical in that respect (kinda like saying "the zeroth day of the
>month").

Out of curiosity: How do we know that the Klingon number system originally 
lacked the concept of zero? What's the source? I can see how someone might 
have come to that conclusion: the fact that {pagh} is still a noun meaning 
"nothing" indicates that {pagh} (noun) was probably used for {pagh} (number) 
when the concept was first introduced. I just haven't read anywhere where 
that idea was suggested.

ghItlhtaH SuStel:
>Just because a language has a potential construction doesn't mean that
>construction is correct.  In English, "I go to bed" and "I go to the bed"
>mean very different things, but you couldn't deduce why or what the
>difference was using only grammatical rules.  It's just the way it is.  The

jangtaH Paul:
>Heehee, possibly a bad example.  "bed" is both a noun and a verb, and
>grammatically those two sentences ARE different; you can identify the
>latter as using a prepositional phrase with a noun because of the presence
>of the "the".  The former is actually a purpose clause, and mirrors the
>form of the less ambiguous "I go to sleep".

When I hear "he bedded", I automatically want to fill in the blank. Who did 
he bed? :) I don't think I've ever heard "to bed" as an intransitive verb. 
Sure, the online Merriam Webster gives that as one of its senses, but that 
sense is not common at all (in Australia, at least; maybe it's more frequent 
in the US).

As far as I can tell, SuStel's example is just fine. While I may be 
incorrectly reanalysing a fossilised form, I don't think "I go to bed" 
contains a purpose clause; the whole thing's an idiom (like "to go to sleep" 
is; you're not actually going anywhere in order to sleep, you're just 
sleeping). "to" is just as much a preposition in "I go to bed" as it is in 
"I go to the bed". It isn't a marker of an infinitive here IMO. A similar 
contrast can be seen in "I go to dinner" versus "I go to the dinner".

Savan.

QeS lagh

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