Qu'wIjmo' jIyevnISpu'

I'm not going to call this use of -pu' categorically wrong, but I suspect you're thinking of past tense instead of aspect here. Are you conceiving of a need to pause that came to an end, or are you just talking about a need to pause? Not that the pause eventually came to an end, which it obviously did since you're writing now, but that it came to an end in the circumstance you're describing with the word yIyavnISpu'.

'ej Do'Ha' qaSpu' jaj bID je jItaHqa'laHpa'.

Stylistic note: jItaHqa'laHpa' before I can resume enduring seems circuitous. Enduring what? Answering (jIjangqa'laHpa')? Writing (composing) (jIqonqa'laHpa')?

nI' QInmeymaj

reH jISIv: nI' QIn pagh tIq QIn. mu'tlhegh lugh vISovbe'.

vaj loQ vImISchoH.

jImISchoH

jItaghqa'meH Daq vItu'.

ghItlhmeH Daq DaSamnISpu'?

jIjatlh:

jagh QaHbe'nISlu' 'a vuDDaj meq qaq buSHa'law' SuStel.

jatlh SuStel:

nuqjatlh? SuStel seems to ignore his preferable opinion.

I should have said something like vuDDaj vuybogh meq qaq'e' buSHa'law' SuStel.

vuy? mu'vetlh vISovbe'.

And of course the preferable reason: wot tlhejbogh <-lu'> <-wI'> je ngaSbogh mu'tlhegh naDpu''a' marq 'oqranD?

wa' naDpu'be' 'ej ghItlhpu'be'.

In my opinion, the lack of canon -lu' plus -wI' is a stronger argument than your inference from the rules of TKD. MO can always refine the rules outlined in his "grammatical sketch," and he could easily say the wording in TKD 3.2.2 fails to take into account one special case, but if he were to start allowing -lu' plus -wI' at this point, some explanation for its apparent rarity is called for.

If Okrand starts doing something, that takes priorty, obviously.

But a lack of evidence cannot reasonably be considered a stronger argument than drawing inferences from the rules. Okrand never says that Klingons don't add wala wala bIng beng to the end of encyclopedia entries written in Klingon; that doesn't mean we should advocate that in our own Klingon encyclopedia.

Your argument doesn't stem from lack of evidence anyway. It comes from analyzing the rules in TKD as they are demonstrated in English translations. You're taking the rule that -wI' turns the verb into its subject, thinking that the subject of leghlu' it is seen is it, and concluding that the it, that which is seen, is the result. But while the it is the subject in English, it is not in Klingon. The Klingon has no subject, and therefore nothing to turn into when a -wI' is added.

In English passive voice, this is true. -lu' is not English passive voice. In Klingon, when -lu' is added, the object remains the object.

This is the language used to decribe what goes on in Klingon. My point is the construction i

Your sentence seems to have been cut off.

Oops! I think I was saying the language used in TKD attempts to describe Klingon grammar in terms familiar to the reader, but that Klingons do not necessarily conceive of their grammar in those terms. Therefore there is a danger of accepting TKD's explanations too literally, and based on that, forcing an interpretation of Klingon grammar that Klingons would rightly consider alien.

I partly agree. TKD certainly is not written in careful linguistic terms. It uses many linguistic terms, but these are not usually defined for the reader; you have to already know what subjects and objects and nouns and verbs are, for instance. Taking TKD too literally is indeed fraught with peril.

However, that is not to say that a Klingon grammarian's analysis of Klingon is the only possible analysis. First remember the fictional background of the book. It is written by a Federation government committee, or a scientific council created by the Federation. English-speaking linguists have prepared it for an English-speaking audience. They describe separate parts of the language that Klingon linguists lump together.

The fiction of TKD is therefore that it is describing the rules of Klingon as it appears naturally, rather than prescribing rules to be followed. The rules that TKD describe actually exist and function in Klingon, whether or not Klingon linguists acknowledge or categorize them. There really is a distinction between question words and exclamations, even though Klingon linguists just call them chuvmey.

The language used to describe -lu' and -wI' describe incompatible functions. -lu' tells us there is no subject. -wI' tells us the verb becomes its subject. These cannot be reconciled by any rules described in TKD. If Okrand were to come and tell us that, in fact, here's what combining those two suffixes means, then that'd be a new rule he'd discovered in talking with Maltz and we could apply it. Languages sometimes have rules that seem nonsensical. But we cannot infer your preferred rule from anything we have been given about the rules of Klingon. You have inferred the rule based on the English translations of Klingon sentences.

So'bogh DoS DIp chu' jal rom chut je,

The rule of accord envisions a new, hidden target noun?

My language here is awkward. An example is called for. When {mulegh ghaH} is changed to {vIleghlu'}. The rule of accord requires the prefix {vI-}, so although semantically there is a null agent and first-person singular patient, grammatically the rule of accord treats this situation as if there were a first-person singular subject and third-person singular object, although that object is merely a grammatical fiction. This is clearly a special situation, and I have to wonder whether OVS accurately reflects how Klingon linguists would interpret it.

mulegh ghaH is not changed to vIleghlu'. You construct vIleghlu' directly. There is no transformation from one to another. When I am thinking in Klingon and I intend to use an indefinite subject, my mind goes straight to vI- being the proper prefix.

The vI- prefix does not, according to the description in TKD, treat vIleghlu' as if it had a first-person singular subject and a third-person singular object. TKD explicitly says the prefixes are used to mean something else. With -lu', vI- MEANS first-person object. There's no grammatical fiction going on; the prefixes are simply reassigned for -lu'.

Now, is it possible that there is some "grammatical fiction" reason WHY the prefixes are reassigned? Maybe, but that's pure conjecture and there's no evidence for it anywhere.

I wasn't implying that vIleghlu' was a form of mulegh ghaH, but rather considering the effect on the prefix if the speaker rephrased the sentence to eliminate the explicit agent. It's impossible (for me, anyway) not to wonder how verbs with -lu' came to have the prefixes they do. I expect that, as with any language, that it's just natural and unquestioned for most native speakers but that it entered speech for a very definite reason that speakers didn't take for granted at the time. What that reason could be I won't even try to guess.

You have now more than once invoked the language of semantics with agent. When comparing English passive and active sentences, the shift of agent from object to subject is significant. Let's look at the case for Klingon -lu'.

I'm going to use a more active verb than legh; there is an argument to be made that there is no agent in seeing. Let's use qIp hit.

jagh vIqIp jIH I hit the enemy
Here, jIH is the subject and the agent. jagh is the object and the patient.

jagh qIplu' someone/something hits the enemy; the enemy is hit
Here, there is no subject or agent. jagh is the object and the patient.

There has been no shifting around of either syntactic or semantic roles.

Here's another:

ghaH is the subject and the agent; jIH is the object and the patient

jIH vIqIplu' someone/something hits me; I am hit
There is no subject or agent; jIH is the object and the patient.

See? No shift at all in either syntax or semantics. We're simply eliminating the subject from consideration. The fact that prefixes are reassigned is completely irrelevant. It's just a thing to memorize; it doesn't affect the grammar in any other way.

'a potlhbe', mu'tlheghDaq DI'rujDaq ghap DoS DIpqoqvam chu' tu'be'lu'mo'. wotvaD DoS DIp 'oHtaH nungbogh DIp'e'. moHaqvaD chuHwI' DIp mojlaw' nungbogh DIp. ghu'vam vIqelmeH DIvI' Hol qechmey /subject/ /object/ je, jImISqu'choH. 'ach vuDlIj QIjmeH /subject/ /object/ je wuv SuStel. rarchu'be' tlhIngan Hol, qechmeyvam je 'e' vIQub.

ghu'vam le'mo', SuStel vuD vIHon. latlh meq vIghaj. 'oSlaHbe' wot'e' tlhejbogh <-lu'> <-wI'> je, 'eb lonlu'pu' 'ej pagh chavlu'.

Hoch 'eb jon Hol 'e' SaHbe' Hol.

'a chaq SaH tlhInganpu'. 'eb tu'DI', lulo' 'e' bot nuq? lubotlaHbe'ba' tera'ngan Holtej. 'a 'eb lulo' luneHbe' tlhIngan, SIghlaHbe' je tera'ngan Holtej.

Arguing over whether a Klingon would or would not care about a particular grammatical feature is not a useful line of reasoning, in my view.

No, but as any of us who've studied a natural language have observed (and it wouldn't surprise me if this applies to every subscriber on this list), native speakers are under no obligation to speak the language the way the student expects, no matter how good the student's reasoning. Our reasoning is ultimately of a kind with that of the toddler who says "goed" instead of "went." Some of my favorite moments in studying Klingon are Maltz's revelations that Klingons don't speak the language the way we'd expect.

There's much to be said for your conservative approach, that it is less likely to generate Klingon expressions that no Klingon would accept than an approach that accepts any Klingon expression that canon doesn't expressly forbid.

Yes, sometimes in our ignorance we say the grammatical equivalent of goed instead of went. You're asking us to say wented.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name