tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 20 15:16:59 2015
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: ghoD
<p dir="ltr">Just a small correction to the word order, your second sentence should be:</p>
<p dir="ltr">{tlhInganpu' wIleghlu'}<br>
‘we Klingons are being seen’</p>
<p dir="ltr">Compare with the frequent construction {X tu'lu'} ‘there is/are X’ – an exact counterpart of the Swedish ‘der finns X’ (sp?), or "X is found" / "someone finds X".<br></p>
<p dir="ltr">BTW, I've never seen any construction like the Klingon -lu' construction in any natural Terran language, in terms of indefinite subject + changed agreement pattern + no word order change. I'm not even sure how to call it, it's neither a passive, nor a normal impersonal construction, nor an antipassive or anticausative. Fascinating.<br>
This might be one of the few things in Klingon that are truly unique to it, without any parallel in a natural language.</p>
<p dir="ltr">- André </p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Oct 20, 2015 23:42, "Anthony Appleyard" <<a href="mailto:[email protected]";>[email protected]</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><blockquote style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:15px"><div>Compare:-<br><br>{wIlegh tlhInganpu'} :: we Klingons see<span></span> :: Latin [Tlingani videmus]<br><br>{wIlegh<u>lu'</u> tlhInganpu'} :: one sees us Klingons / we Klingons are seen :: Latin [Tlingani videm<span>u<u>r</u>]<br><br>This "impersonal" looks somewhat like a Latin passive in verb suffix use, but like an impersonal in the word order. <br><br>wide = legh, mus = wI, r = lu'<br> </span><br><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US"></span></b><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">From:</span></b> Will Martin [mailto:<a href="mailto:[email protected]"; target="_blank">[email protected]</a>] <br><div><div style="border:none;border-top:solid #b5c4df 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US"><b>Sent:</b> October 20, 2015 8:45<br><b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:[email protected]"; target="_blank">[email protected]</a><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: ghoD<u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u><u></u></p><div><p class="MsoNormal">I’m sure this was discussed to death years ago, but it occurs to me that {lu-} is the only prefix used with {-lu’} that indicates a direct object. It’s further interesting by reversing the number of the subject and object, since the unknown subject is singular, but the known object is plural, while the prefix suggests the opposite.<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">It’s one of the weird exceptions that makes the rule, I suppose...<u></u><u></u></p></div><br></div></blockquote><br><p></p><br>_______________________________________________<br>
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