<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=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><br class="">On May 8, 2019, at 10:51 AM, SuStel <<a href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name" class="">sustel@trimboli.name</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/8/2019 10:21 AM, Will Martin
wrote:<br class="">
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<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:D487C40B-F494-496B-8910-B1724870CA28@mac.com" class="">
<div class="">Okrand has consistently avoided using the words
“transitive” or “intransitive”. He didn’t mark this sort of
thing in TKD. <br class="">
</div>
</blockquote><p class="">It's usually not so simple. English verbs, for instance, usually
have both transitive and intransitive senses. What we don't get in
<i class="">The Klingon Dictionary</i> are senses.</p></div></div></blockquote><div><div class="">I have not had any familiarity with the grammatical term “senses”, but it sounds like you know of what you speak.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="">
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:D487C40B-F494-496B-8910-B1724870CA28@mac.com" class="">
<div class="">It’s long been a frustration for me because I
honestly believe that you can’t understand a verb well until you
know its relationship with acceptable direct objects. The
relationship between the verb and its direct object is part of
the meaning of the verb, and most of the time, this is part of
the definition of verbs that we don’t get from Okrand. We just
have to watch for it in canon, and even then, it’s not always
consistent.</div>
</blockquote><p class="">More than that: we have to try to understand all the arguments of
a verb. Sometimes it's not clear what the <i class="">subject</i> of a
verb should be, let alone any objects.</p></div></div></blockquote><div>I agree that all arguments to a verb help achieve a deeper understanding of the verb. </div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="">
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:D487C40B-F494-496B-8910-B1724870CA28@mac.com" class="">
<div class="">SuStel has long made this point from a different
angle, and I’ve agued in favor of some kind of clarified,
systematic approach, while he’s tended to defend a looser
acceptance of a wider range of possibilities in terms of objects
of verbs. Over time, I’ve worn down and just accept that we just
do the best we can.</div>
</blockquote><p class="">I find it amusing that most people think I'm the uber-strict,
slippery-slope-ignoring grammar police, while you think I'm a
hippy-dippy grammar defiler.</p></div></div></blockquote><div><div class="">I’d like to clarify that I don’t think you are a hippy-dippy grammar defiler. I think of our past mostly as being necessary opposites, such that a balance between our extremes has helped the language evolve, yet remain sufficiently stable to be useful to the whole community. I’ve consistently (well, MOSTLY consistently) erred toward conservative, limited extension beyond what we are explicitly given, and you’ve sought often well-considered openness to possibilities beyond my small-minded restrictions.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In early days, there were so many self-declared usurpers pushing to make up new vocabulary without waiting for Okrand to give us words, or to make wild reinterpretations of the grammar that I felt compelled to draw my blade and fight the good fight to defend Okrand as the source of the language… and it just continued on and on with so many assaults, often poorly planned or justified, that I felt squeezed into a mold — to satisfy that call to balance.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">When I stopped participating for an extended period, it’s only natural that you’d be drawn to fill in the void and step forward to guard stability of interpretation, holding us closer to canon.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So, now we agree more often than we used to because many of your arguments have convinced me against my former positions, and because you’ve begun to see the dangers of chaos in the absence of anyone speaking out for order.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It’s a theory, anyway.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So many of the early voices have vanished. We don’t hear from Qanqor anymore. We don’t hear from Seqram anymore. We rarely hear from ghunchu’wI’. I miss Doqtargh.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So, the new balance is struck and it evolves.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">You still call me out for my knee-jerk, excessive attempts to limit what people can do with the language, and the recent times you’ve done that, I’ve agreed with you. I’m trying to catch up with changes in my absence and become more of a simple participant and less of a self-declared authority figure (despite occasional seizures apparently caused by some mysterious form of epilepsy that involves touch typing).</div></div></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="">
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:D487C40B-F494-496B-8910-B1724870CA28@mac.com" class="">
<div class="">Maybe {qID} can use {‘e’} as its direct object. If
you don’t like that, then you can treat it like one of the verbs
that almost makes it to the list of speech words, but doesn’t
quite. {qID Qanqor. jatlh <peng baHmeH qarDaSngan ‘ar
poQlu’?>}</div>
</blockquote><p class="">I hadn't considered <b class="">'e'</b> or <b class="">net </b>as the object of
<b class="">qID,</b> but once De'vID suggested it, it made sense.</p><p class="">Another verb that I think really only works with an <b class="">'e'</b>
or <b class="">net</b> object is <b class="">Hech</b><i class=""> intend, mean to.</i><br class="">
</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:D487C40B-F494-496B-8910-B1724870CA28@mac.com" class="">
<div class="">I’m guessing that when Okrand includes an explicit
noun in the gloss, it probably is similar to English verbs that
have an implied direct object that can be stated explicitly, but
doesn’t really need to. A moon orbits. What does it orbit. Well,
it orbits a planet. That’s what makes it a moon. A moon doesn’t
orbit a star. It would be a planet, if it did that.</div>
</blockquote><p class="">Whenever Okrand is writing for a word-list, as opposed to
conversationally explaining a word, he includes an explicit noun
on a verb where the English translation has more than once sense,
and he's disambiguating which sense he means.</p><p class=""><b class="">baH</b><i class=""> fire (torpedo, rocket, missile)</i> — as opposed to
fire someone from their job or fire a kiln.<br class="">
<b class="">bIv</b> <i class="">break (rules)</i> — as opposed to breaking a piece
of glass.<br class="">
<b class="">cha'</b><i class=""> show, display (picture)</i> — as opposed to showing
or displaying a statue in a gallery.<br class="">
<b class="">chIp</b><i class=""> cut, trim (hair)</i> — as opposed to cutting other
things like meat or wood.<br class="">
<b class="">chu'</b> <i class="">engage, activate (a device)</i> — not sure about
this one, maybe it's to distinguish <i class="">engage</i> from something
like engaging in conversation. Activate has other senses, but
they're too esoteric to have needed disambiguation.<br class="">
<b class="">Dan</b><i class=""> occupy (military term)</i> — as opposed to being
inside something. No one would misunderstand "military term" as
being the object of <b class="">Dan.<br class="">
ghoS</b> one of the translations is <i class="">follow (a course)</i> —
as opposed to following someone into the Great Barrier.<br class="">
<b class="">He'</b><i class=""> smell, emit odor</i> — as opposed to emitting sounds
or exhaust. This one doesn't even bother with parentheses, because
the main sense of the word comes from <i class="">odor,</i> not <i class="">emit.</i></p></div></div></blockquote><div>I think it’s important to note when there are or are not parentheses around the object in the gloss. {He’} doesn’t have parentheses, and I suggest it takes no direct object. Those with parentheses are simply examples of the sort of direct object that the verb can take. As such {qID}’s gloss is “joke, make a joke, tell a joke”. No parentheses. That suggests that the direct object in the gloss is implicit and not merely exemplary. It suggests that {qID} takes no object.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>I’m not sure that Okrand is ALWAYS consistent about this, but I don’t think it’s accidental. It seems to be an element of his proprietary notation.</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""><p class="">And so on.<br class="">
</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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