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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/2/2018 5:35 AM, Lieven L. Litaer
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:dfa106fc-3c7c-1a9f-adad-cd5e62005afa@gmx.de">Okrand did
not say "MUST always" take an object, he just says that it "would
be weird not to" have one.
<br>
<br>
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.</blockquote>
<p>But <i>weird</i> doesn't mean <i>rare.</i> There are perfectly
understandable reasons why one might use the verb <i>love</i>
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!"</p>
<p>I don't think Okrand is saying <b>rang</b> is only objectless in
rare cases. <i>Weird</i> means that while there's no actual rule
requiring any verb take an object, <b>rang</b> really <i>needs</i>
an object to make sense. Same with <b>ngI'</b>, which someone
else quoted.</p>
<p>The difference, though, with <b>rang</b> versus <b>ngI'</b> is
that I can easily understand what <b>rang</b> without an object
would mean: <i>be responsible for things in general;</i> while <b>ngI'</b>
without an object truly is weird: <i>have a weight of a general
measurement?</i> But Okrand says <b>rang</b> without an object
is weird, so we must accept that Klingons find it so.</p>
<p>So I think it IS ungrammatical to use <b>rang</b> 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 <b>rang</b> forces it to have an
object. To leave off an object is not syntactically incorrect, but
it is still wrong.</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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