[tlhIngan Hol] Using -ta' during -taHvIS

[SuStel]

On 2/27/2019 10:46 AM, Will Martin wrote:
> We all hate the rule.

Speak for yourself, not others. I don't hate the rule; I think it adds 
character to the language.


> In terms of the grammar being internally consistent and making sense 
> and offering the most broad expressive capability, this rule stinks 
> enough that even Okrand breaks it from time to time. I personally 
> think it’s forgivable to let those exceptions in canon trump the rule, 
> making it obsolete, so we can say, “Yeah, that’s an old grammar rule 
> that people often ignore,” like the way in English, as years pass, 
> people never use “whom”, but instead use “who” for either subject or 
> object.

Don't speak for Klingons, either. You don't know that this is the 
Klingon equivalent of /whom./ You can't go declaring that it's 
disappearing from Klingon because you don't like it. Okrand has given us 
some indication of language change in /KGT,/ and perfective on the 
second verb is not one of the things he says is happening.


> Yes, the English rule definitely still exists, and you really should 
> say, “To whom are you speaking?” instead of “Who are you speaking 
> to?”, but if somebody says the latter, everybody understands them, and 
> most of the time, to be polite, you don’t even point out the technical 
> error(s).

You're being a prescriptivist. You're declaring a rule imposed on a 
language by some entity. The fiction of Klingon is that it's a real 
language and that Okrand is our conduit through which we learn how it 
works. In that fiction, TKD and KGT are descriptions of how Klingon is 
actually spoken, not prescriptions for the language, and not style guides.

English /whom/ is disappearing from the language. It is so far removed 
from the language that it's perfectly acceptable in many circumstances 
not to use it. That's not a violation; that's the language.

There was a short-lived sequel series to /Babylon 5/ called /Crusade./ 
The opening sequence of this show drove me mad, because it twice had a 
character asking in melodramatic tones, "Who do you serve, and who do 
you trust?" /WHOM! It's WHOM, you stupid show!/ But there we are.

> It’s good to have the rule to explain the past, but I don’t think 
> anybody should feel TOO attached to the rule for the future.

Please cite the canonical evidence that shows that this rule is 
disappearing from the language.


> It’s like the English word “ain’t”. We know it’s not proper, but it 
> works, and EVERYBODY knows HOW it works.

/Ain't/ is completely proper in the correct dialects. A style guide may 
tell you not to use it, but that doesn't make it wrong. There are 
circumstances where, if you said /isn't/ instead of /ain't,/ you'd 
actually be wrong to do so.

Take, for instance, the famous phrase "Ain't nobody got time for that." 
In the dialect spoken by Sweet Brown, that is a completely acceptable 
and proper sentence. She could not have said "Nobody has time for that" 
in her dialect; it would mark her as not belonging. Her dialect, and 
many others like it, have known rules that are as grammatically 
consistent as Standard American English.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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