tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 12 19:47:22 2009
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: The meaning of -moH
I'm tired.
Obviously.
The interesting thing is that you don't actually need the correct word
"syntax" or "semantics". Context alone makes it clear which I mean when.
The redundancies of language is a wonderful thing. So much of a
message can be "wrong" and the meaning still gets through.
Doq
On Oct 12, 2009, at 10:14 PM, Doq wrote:
> Interestingly, one sleeps when one is in a particular state. If I
> sleep, then I am sleeping. The definition could as easily been "be
> asleep" or "be sleeping", in which case, we could use it as an
> adjective, and it would be just like {tIn} or {bIr}.
>
> One thing to watch for when focusing a bit much on syntax vs. syntax
> when referring to direct objects is that it is easy to put too much
> weight on the ENGLISH syntax of a given verb. If the gloss were an
> imperfect attempt to convey the meaning of a verb, then we could
> easily get confused about whether a given verb could take an object,
> and if so, what kind of object. Meanwhile, as imperfect as the glosses
> are, they usually stand alone in explaining words to us, since we have
> so little canon.
>
> Doq
>
> On Oct 8, 2009, at 8:12 AM, ghunchu'wI' wrote:
>
>> On Oct 7, 2009, at 6:52 PM, David Trimboli wrote:
>>
>>> The text tells us we can put objects on verbs, but it never tells us
>>> when we *can't* do it.
>>
>> It comes close, though. When introducing verb prefixes, the example
>> verb is {Qong} "sleep" and only the no-object prefixes are listed.
>> The text then goes on to say that those prefixes are also used when
>> an object is possible but not stated. I infer from the wording that
>> such prefixes are *not* used with {Qong}. I agree that nothing
>> explicitly says that there is a rule against it, but there is some
>> support in TKD for saying that an object on {Qong} is not possible.
>> The semantics vs. syntax distinction is a little fuzzy, but I'm
>> leaning toward this being a syntactical feature. The problem of
>> being able to know which verbs have the syntactical restriction is a
>> persistent one, though.
>>
>>> There *is* a distinction between verbs of quality
>>> and verbs of action,...
>>
>> With the {Qong} prefix example, there is also an apparent category of
>> non-quality verbs which don't take objects.
>>
>> -- ghunchu'wI'
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>