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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/10/2019 2:03 PM, Ed Bailey wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CABSTb1dtpGi05n7__Q3aLRKrSt3DBaMxSGM7j__bcQWdL4-2-g@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 1:02 PM SuStel <<a
href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name" moz-do-not-send="true">sustel@trimboli.name</a>>
wrote:<br>
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0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<div class="gmail-m_-7801289136547890453moz-cite-prefix">On
4/10/2019 12:48 PM, Ed Bailey wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite">It seems this behavior is seen in
Klingon verbs like <b>meQ</b>, where <b>-moH</b> is
sometimes dropped. Perhaps this happens due to your
out-of-universe explanation, but an in-universe
explanation would be the desire for brevity, combined with
pragmatics.</blockquote>
<p>Wait, who determined that <b>-moH</b> is sometimes
dropped from <b>meQ,</b> and how did they determine it? I
recognize that <b>meQ</b> is first defined and used for
us as <i>burn </i>and is used several times with the
subject being the thing that is on fire, and that KGT used
it transitively with the thing on fire as the object, but
how do you go from that to saying the mechanism behind
this is a dropped <b>-moH? </b>How do you know it isn't
just that the subject and object of the verb are flexible
in the same way that English <i>burn</i> is? (Which is
probably the reason why the usage changed.) Or some other
explanation I haven't thought of?<br>
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<div><b>meQ</b> used transitively is synonymous with <b>meQmoH</b>,
right? So you can say <b>meQmoH</b> if you like, or you can
dispense with <b>-moH</b>. But yes, there's no telling whether
the transitive or intransitive sense came first.</div>
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<p>The fact that you can (apparently) say <b>meQ</b> or <b>meQmoH</b>
to mean the same thing doesn't mean that one necessarily arises
from a dropping or adding of <b>-moH</b> for brevity or
pragmatics. That's one possible reason, but there are others.</p>
<p>And we don't actually <i>know</i> that you can say <b>meQmoH</b>
and mean <i>burn (something).</i> Maybe the existence of
transitive <b>meQ</b> means Klingons don't accept the use of <b>meQmoH</b>
at all, because that would be silly. I'm not saying this is the
case, just that we don't know.</p>
<p>You can use the word whichever way you want, and I can't say
anything against it. But you can't claim that the <b>meQ/meQmoH</b>
difference is specifically because of a dropped <b>-moH,</b> let
alone that the <b>-moH</b> is dropped for the sake of brevity.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CABSTb1dtpGi05n7__Q3aLRKrSt3DBaMxSGM7j__bcQWdL4-2-g@mail.gmail.com">
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<div> If <b>meQ</b> is just flexible like English <i>burn</i>,
wouldn't you like to know what other Klingon verbs are
flexible in this way?</div>
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<p>Not really. I'd like to know the correct subjects and objects to
use for verbs. If some of them are flexible, sure, I'd like to
know that. But I'm not particularly hoping for them, and I'm
certainly not proposing a mechanism by which other verbs might
also arise the same way.</p>
<p>But I don't look forward to finding Englishisms in Klingon.<br>
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<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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