[tlhIngan Hol] verbs necessarily taking objects

[SuStel]

On 2/2/2018 5:35 AM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote:
> Okrand did not say "MUST always" take an object, he just says that it 
> "would be weird not to" have one.
>
> Think of the English verb "love". You can say "I love you" and "I love 
> cookies" - but just saying "I love." seems weird, doesn't it? And I'm 
> sure there are words much weirder to say without object.

But /weird/ doesn't mean /rare./ There are perfectly understandable 
reasons why one might use the verb /love/ without an object: "Oh, 
please. Don't let them take me. I can't even touch them! Janice, they 
can't feel. Not like you! They don't love!"

I don't think Okrand is saying *rang* is only objectless in rare cases. 
/Weird/ means that while there's no actual rule requiring any verb take 
an object, *rang* really /needs/ an object to make sense. Same with 
*ngI'*, which someone else quoted.

The difference, though, with *rang* versus *ngI'* is that I can easily 
understand what *rang* without an object would mean: /be responsible for 
things in general;/ while *ngI'* without an object truly is weird: /have 
a weight of a general measurement?/ But Okrand says *rang* without an 
object is weird, so we must accept that Klingons find it so.

So I think it IS ungrammatical to use *rang* without an object, but it 
is ungrammatical SEMANTICALLY, not syntactically. There is no syntactic 
rule that says a verb must have an object, but the particular meaning of 
*rang* forces it to have an object. To leave off an object is not 
syntactically incorrect, but it is still wrong.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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