[tlhIngan Hol] ordering and scope of adverbials relative totimestamps

[SuStel]

Sure, I could say “didn’t add” instead of “got rid of.” It doesn’t change the point.

I don’t think “got rid of” is really wrong, anyway. Okrand has told the story many times, and it’s always framed in terms of him wanting there to be no “to be,” not that “to be” never entered into it. His deliberate avoidance is along the lines of “English has ‘to be.’ I want to make it different, so no ‘to be.’” To me, that’s getting rid of “to be.” Rejecting it.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

From: Daniel Dadap
Sent: Saturday, February 9, 2019 11:01 PM
To: tlhingan-hol at kli.org
Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] ordering and scope of adverbials relative totimestamps


On Feb 9, 2019, at 19:30, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
He didn't get rid of to be because of a profound connection to Klingon culture.

He didn’t “get rid” of “to be”. There was never any “to be” to get rid of. Many languages on Earth also lack copula verbs, and the lack or presence of such verbs is no more reflective of culture on Qo'noS than it is on Earth.

Okrand made many decisions about the language, and while many of them were culturally motivated (e.g. phrasing things that would be “which” questions as commands - “paq DalaDbogh yIngu'!”), most of them weren’t. While I’d be happy to accept that things like the qualification suffixes, or grammatical gender being based on ability to use speech (or being a body part) have something to do with Klingon culture, I think it would be a stretch to claim that things like SVO, agglutination, lack of tense, etc., are reflective of culture.

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