verbs necessarily taking objects
There is something I can't understand, something which I think I had asked sometime ago, but I still have trouble understanding.. There are verbs which can't take an object. And there are verbs which can take an object.. But are there verbs which always must have an object ? At another thread I read: 'oqranD:
The grammatical difference is that {rang} can take an object (the thing the subject is responsible for) -- and it would be weird for it not to have an object
So, this means that there are verbs which must necessarily take an object, right ? Verbs like {rang}, verbs like {DIl}. Am I right ? Could someone clarify this matter ? ~ nI'ghma
Am 02.02.2018 um 11:01 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:
So, this means that there are verbs which must necessarily take an object, right ? Verbs like {rang}, verbs like {DIl}.
Not necessarily. {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} "Who is paying tonight" makes sense clearly.
Am I right ? Could someone clarify this matter ?
I don't see this as so confusing. In other languages there are also verbs that usually take an object. Okrand did not say "MUST always" take an object, he just says that it "would be weird not to" have one. 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. -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Transitivity
lieven:
Not necessarily. {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} "Who is paying tonight" makes sense clearly.
Couldn't though the {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} actually mean "Who is paying tonight for it" ? ~ nI'ghma On Feb 2, 2018 12:35, "Lieven L. Litaer" <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
Am 02.02.2018 um 11:01 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:
So, this means that there are verbs which must necessarily take an object, right ? Verbs like {rang}, verbs like {DIl}.
Not necessarily. {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} "Who is paying tonight" makes sense clearly.
Am I right ? Could someone clarify this matter ?
I don't see this as so confusing. In other languages there are also verbs that usually take an object.
Okrand did not say "MUST always" take an object, he just says that it "would be weird not to" have one.
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.
-- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Transitivity _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
I'm only asking because, occasionally there is an inconsistency between the literal meaning of the klingon sentence, and its english translation. Was the klingon sentence written with the "Who is paying tonight" meaning in mind, or was the intended klingon "Tonight who is paying for it*, and the english was given as "Who is paying tonight" ? ~ nI'ghma On Feb 2, 2018 12:40 PM, "mayqel qunenoS" <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
lieven:
Not necessarily. {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} "Who is paying tonight" makes sense clearly.
Couldn't though the {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} actually mean "Who is paying tonight for it" ?
~ nI'ghma
On Feb 2, 2018 12:35, "Lieven L. Litaer" <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
Am 02.02.2018 um 11:01 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:
So, this means that there are verbs which must necessarily take an object, right ? Verbs like {rang}, verbs like {DIl}.
Not necessarily. {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} "Who is paying tonight" makes sense clearly.
Am I right ? Could someone clarify this matter ?
I don't see this as so confusing. In other languages there are also verbs that usually take an object.
Okrand did not say "MUST always" take an object, he just says that it "would be weird not to" have one.
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.
-- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Transitivity _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
lieven:
Not necessarily. {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} "Who is paying tonight" makes sense clearly.
Am 02.02.2018 um 11:40 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:
Couldn't though the {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} actually mean "Who is paying tonight for it" ?
Yes, true. But that's the problem of the English translation, not the Klingon. Remember the canon example {DaH yIDIl} "Pay now." - this could also be translated as "Pay for it now", but what's the difference? And litereally, you may even read "Who pays for the today?" -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/StarTrekDiscovery
lieven:
And litereally, you may even read "Who pays for the today?"
hahaha. You"re right.. So, as I understand, if I write {jISopnISmo' jIDIl} "because I needed to eat I paid", it is correct. Right ? ~ nI'ghma On Feb 2, 2018 12:53 PM, "Lieven L. Litaer" <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
lieven:
Not necessarily. {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} "Who is paying tonight" makes sense
clearly.
Am 02.02.2018 um 11:40 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:
Couldn't though the {DaHjaj DIl 'Iv} actually mean "Who is paying tonight for it" ?
Yes, true. But that's the problem of the English translation, not the Klingon. Remember the canon example {DaH yIDIl} "Pay now." - this could also be translated as "Pay for it now", but what's the difference?
And litereally, you may even read "Who pays for the today?"
-- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/StarTrekDiscovery _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 2/2/2018 5:35 AM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote:
Okrand did not say "MUST always" take an object, he just says that it "would be weird not to" have one.
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.
But /weird/ doesn't mean /rare./ There are perfectly understandable reasons why one might use the verb /love/ 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!" I don't think Okrand is saying *rang* is only objectless in rare cases. /Weird/ means that while there's no actual rule requiring any verb take an object, *rang* really /needs/ an object to make sense. Same with *ngI'*, which someone else quoted. The difference, though, with *rang* versus *ngI'* is that I can easily understand what *rang* without an object would mean: /be responsible for things in general;/ while *ngI'* without an object truly is weird: /have a weight of a general measurement?/ But Okrand says *rang* without an object is weird, so we must accept that Klingons find it so. So I think it IS ungrammatical to use *rang* 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 *rang* forces it to have an object. To leave off an object is not syntactically incorrect, but it is still wrong. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 9:59 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
The difference, though, with *rang* versus *ngI'* is that I can easily understand what *rang* without an object would mean: *be responsible for things in general;* while *ngI'* without an object truly is weird: *have a weight of a general measurement?*
Well, there's the example of {ngI'chu' muD} "the atmosphere weighs perfectly/is properly pressurized". Based on that, {ngI'} without an object might mean something like "have a weight, and it's not important what that specific weight is, only that the subject has weight". Since {ngI'} is usually used for measurements, it would be weird to leave the specific measurement out, but I can imagine other situations like {ngI'chu' muD} where you're only talking about the non-numeric "quality" of weight. So if I were floating around on the International Space Station, I might comment {jIngI'be'} "I do not have a weight, I am weightless, I do not weigh anything." You could also say the same thing about photons: {ngI'be' 'otlhmey}. Or if you were being poetic, you could say it about abstract qualities: {ngI'be' parmaq}. (Likewise, you might describe a geometric point as {'aDbe' 'ej juchbe'} "lengthless and widthless".) There are even scenarios where Okrand's example of {ngI' muD} might not be weird or pointless. If you were explaining the concept of air pressure to someone and starting with the very basics, you might start by saying {ngI' muD} to mean "the atmosphere has weight, i.e. the atmosphere is a physical object that pushes down on things because of gravity". The specific weight of the atmosphere is not relevant at this point in the discussion, only the fact that the atmosphere has a weight at all.
So I think it IS ungrammatical to use *rang* 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 *rang* forces it to have an object. To leave off an object is not syntactically incorrect, but it is still wrong.
Okrand uses the term "weird" for both objectless {ngI'} and objectless {rang}, and we know at least one canon example of acceptably-objectless {ngI'}. So I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that objectless {rang} is out-and-out wrong, it's just usually confusing because details are being left out. (Though if your goal is clear writing, being confusing is also a kind of wrong.) So in situations where those details don't matter, it might not be unacceptable. I can imagine a sentence like {rangbe'nIS cheng} to mean something like "Chang needs to not be in charge, Chang needs to not be responsible for anything, don't put Chang in charge of anything", in which {rang} is objectless because it's a non-specific comment about Chang in general, not a specific responsibility. Or, alternately, {rangnIS cheng} might mean "Chang needs to be responsible for something, needs to be in charge of something", which could imply something like "We should give Chang more responsibility". Either way, the details of what Chang should or should not be responsible for are irrelevant, just as the specific atmospheric weight in {ngI'chu' muD} is irrelevant.
On 2/2/2018 11:21 AM, nIqolay Q wrote:
So I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that objectless {rang} is out-and-out wrong,
I specifically said it's not out-and-out wrong, though I didn't use that phrase. It's still wrong, in the sense that if you said it to someone, they'd stop and wonder what the heck you're talking about... oh, okay, I get it, that's a funny word you just used there. It's weird in the same sense that a verb + *-ghach* with no intervening suffix is weird. It's wrong, but it's not, strictly speaking, illegal. In English /eatation/ is a perfectly well-formed word created from /eat + -ation,///meaning /the process of eating./ But it's not a real word. It's wrong, as wrong as *Sopghach* is. But if you wanted to make a point and the combination of *Sop* and *-taH* (or /eat/ and /-ation/) made that point perfectly, in the right settings you'd go ahead and say it anyway. Well, my understanding is that *rang* without an object is wrong, in the sense that while it doesn't actually break any rules, it's just not used that way. If you had a particular point to make and an objectless *rang* made that point perfectly, in the right settings you'd just go ahead and say it anyway, but that doesn't make it any less wrong, or "weird." -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On 2 February 2018 at 11:01, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
There is something I can't understand, something which I think I had asked sometime ago, but I still have trouble understanding..
There are verbs which can't take an object.
And there are verbs which can take an object..
But are there verbs which always must have an object ?
Grammatically? No. But there are some which would have a weird meaning without an object.
At another thread I read:
'oqranD:
The grammatical difference is that {rang} can take an object (the thing the subject is responsible for) -- and it would be weird for it not to have an object
So, this means that there are verbs which must necessarily take an object, right ? Verbs like {rang}, verbs like {DIl}.
Am I right ? Could someone clarify this matter ?
It's laid out in The Klingon Dictionary, p. 33-34: <<The prefixes in the first column of the chart (headed "none") are used when there is no object... This set of prefixes is also used when an object is possible, but unknown or vague. Thus, {jIyaj} "I understand" can be used when the speaker understands things in general, knows what is going on, or understands what another speaker has just said. It cannot, however, be used for understanding a language or understanding a person. Similarly, {maSop} "we eat" can be used to indicate a general act of eating, but not if a specific food is mentioned.>> -- De'vID
On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 5:01 AM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
There is something I can't understand, something which I think I had asked sometime ago, but I still have trouble understanding..
There are verbs which can't take an object.
And there are verbs which can take an object..
But are there verbs which always must have an object ?
At another thread I read:
'oqranD:
The grammatical difference is that {rang} can take an object (the thing the subject is responsible for) -- and it would be weird for it not to have an object
So, this means that there are verbs which must necessarily take an object, right ? Verbs like {rang}, verbs like {DIl}.
Am I right ? Could someone clarify this matter ?
In addition to the other examples given so far, there's also this bit, from https://www.kli.org/activities/qepmey/qepa-chamah-losdich/qepa-chamah-losdich-new-words/ " The lack of an expressed object (the specific weight) is not a problem. It may be weird or pointless to say {ngI' muD}, but it's not ungrammatical. " The gloss for {ngI'} is "have a weight of", but even though the English gloss has a preposition at the end which presumably needs an object, you can still use {ngI'} on its own. Presumably {ngI' muD} means something like "the atmosphere has weight" (as opposed to weightless air in an unpressurized cabin, perhaps). So it seems that it's not wrong per se to use verbs without objects, even verbs that strongly suggest needing one. It's just unusual and possibly confusing.
participants (5)
-
De'vID -
Lieven L. Litaer -
mayqel qunenoS -
nIqolay Q -
SuStel