<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">My old argument about this, when we were figuring out how {vIH} worked, was that we had a better mechanism for converting an intransitive interpretation with {-moH} to make it transitive than we had for converting a transitive interpretation (with {-egh} perhaps?) into an intransitive meaning, since things that move are not necessarily caused to move by themselves.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Then, of course, Okrand had to come up with things {-eghmoH}ing. [sigh]</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Maybe I should have stuck with French as a second language...<br class=""><div class="">
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan<br class=""><br class="">rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.</div>
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<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 10, 2019, at 12:48 PM, Ed Bailey <<a href="mailto:bellerophon.modeler@gmail.com" class="">bellerophon.modeler@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 11:44 AM Felix Malmenbeck <<a href="mailto:felixm@kth.se" class="">felixm@kth.se</a>> wrote:</div><div dir="ltr" class=""><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr" style="font-size: 12pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">
<div style="color:rgb(33,33,33)" class="">We have seen some Klingon words that show a similar type of ambitransitive alternation (<strong class="">ghom</strong>,
<strong class="">choH</strong>, <strong class="">mev</strong>), and I'm sure others exist, but from an in-universe perspective, there's not much reason to infer that a Klingon verb is an alternating ambitransitive based on whether or not its English gloss is.</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It seems this behavior is seen in Klingon verbs like <b class="">meQ</b>, where <b class="">-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.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><b class="">chabHom bal qoDDaq ghopwIj vISIchmoH</b> <i class="">I make my hand reach into the cookie jar</i>, or maybe better <b class="">ghopwIjvaD chabHom bal qoD vISIchmoH</b> would be a safe construction, assuming the body part or implement can be the subject of <b class="">SIch</b>, </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 12:01 PM De'vID <<a href="mailto:de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com" class="">de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, 10 Apr 2019 at 16:37, Ed Bailey <<a href="mailto:bellerophon.modeler@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">bellerophon.modeler@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="">Here are two more things about SIch I'd like clarified.</div><div class="">Can it be used with the body part or implement as its object? <b class="">?chabHom bal qoD[Daq] ghopwIj vISIch</b> <i class="">I reach my hand into the cookie jar</i>.</div></div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Did someone cut off your hand and put it into a cookie jar, and are you retrieving it (presumably with your other hand)? I read this as "In the cookie jar, I reach my hand."</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I'd cite this as an example of the deliberate disuse of pragmatics: resolving ambiguity by following a strict usage rule rather than choosing the most likely possibility as the speaker's intent. Klingons do have some strict usage rules, to be sure, and I'm not saying Klingons actually use <b class="">SIch</b> this way - it was a question - but Klingons do need pragmatics in order to communicate effectively, which in turn can inform usage. I doubt one Klingon would deliberately misunderstand the other simply because of dropping the <b class="">-moH</b> for brevity, unless there was a reason for strictness (like the case of the missing Oxford comma in the labor contract <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/oxford-comma-lawsuit.html" class="">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/oxford-comma-lawsuit.html</a>).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">~mIp'av</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> </div></div></div></div>
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