tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue May 25 14:09:51 2004

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: action verbs vs. qualities

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

From: "Steven Boozer" <[email protected]>
> Okrand doesn't discuss these "fine points" explicitly, merely hints at
> them, but an examination of the corpus shows that he's consistent in his
> usage.  As an academically trained linguist Okrand uses his terms very
> carefully, even if he sometimes doesn't share the distinctions with
> us.  Let's re-read the relevant passage on {-lI'} "in progress" (TKD 42f):
>
> > >  This suffix is similar to {-taH} "continuous" in that it indicates
> > >  that an activity is ongoing. Unlike {-taH}, however, {-lI'} implies
>
> N.B. "an activity is ongoing"
>
> > >  that the activity has a known goal or a definite stopping point. In
>
> N.B. "an activity", "goal", "stopping point"

[etc.]


We've had this argument before.  The problem is Okrand does NOT use his
terms very carefully.  His description of pronunciations has left many
people pronouncing things completely wrong, because they expected it to be
technically correct.  His explanation of {-'e'} says "topic," but he uses it
plenty of times as "focus," and is even corrected in a HolQeD interview.  He
discusses sentence conjunctions, but then goes on to use those conjunctions
with verbs that aren't sentences.  He breaks his own rules accidentally, he
forgets whether a word was used transitively or intransitively, he forgets
prefixes, and he backfits any mistakes that come to his attention when he
has the opportunity.  He didn't even have a complete vocabulary list before
charghwI' gave him one.

You'd like everything to be part of a tidy masterplan, but it isn't.  In
this case, I don't believe for one minute that Okrand intended {-lI'} and
{-ta'} to refer only to action verbs.  I doubt the distinction between
action and quality was very clear to him at this stage of the language's
creation.

And let's face it: in Klingon, being happy or hot or angry IS an action.
{Quch} and {tuj} and {QeH} are VERBS.  They are {wot}.  To describe them in
terms of actions is not strange.  {jIQeH}.  I don't do it *to* anything, I
just do it.  I {QeH} "be angry."

SuStel
Stardate 4399.3

Back to archive top level