tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 11 14:49:49 2006

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Re: transitivity

QeS 'utlh ([email protected])



ghItlhpu' ter'eS, ja':
>I don't follow this.  When did Okrand say that {yIn}
>is bivalent?

jangpu' DloraH:
>He signed my KGT [tlhIngan yIn DayIn].  I don't remember now what he said
>afterwards, but I remember taking it as a hint that this was not completely
>grammatical but /could/ be said.

As well as the signing of DloraH's KGT, Okrand explicitly said in HolQeD 
7.4:

"For example, I've used the word {yIn} transitively. "You live a Klingon 
life." That's perfectly acceptable in Klingon. It's perfectly acceptable in 
English, too, but it is not obvious from the short definition in the 
dictionary that that would be an okay thing to do." (Okrand to charghwI', 
HolQeD 7.4)

>Why do you say that any non-stative can take an object?

"He flew a short flight". "He slept the sleep of the dead". Going from what 
Okrand said in this interview, it seems like those could theoretically work 
in Klingon, too, but in practice it doesn't happen that way:

"The other tricky thing is some people say you can put any prefix on any 
verb. I suppose that you can, but just because you can doesn't mean that you 
should." (Okrand to charghwI', HolQeD 7.4)

>For that matter, why do you call {Qong} a non-stative?

Read "stative" as "able to be used adjectivally". I thoroughly reject, for 
instance, *{jIH Qong law' SoH Qong rap} "I slept as much as you".

QeS 'utlh
tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pabpo' / Grammarian of the Klingon Language Institute


not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
     - Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh

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