[Tlhingan-hol] Weather infinitives

[David Trimboli]

On 7/18/2012 10:26 PM, Rohan Fenwick - QeS 'utlh wrote:
>
> ghItlhpu' SuStel, jatlh:
>> DaH naDev SISchoH. Do'Ha' ghaytan much QoQ ghomwIj* net qIl. Hoch DIS,
>> qaStaHvIS cha' jar vaghlogh mamuch. ghaytan DISvam wa' much wIjeghnIS.
>
> Do'Ha'bej. HurDaq muchDI' QoQ muchwI' loQ SuD. 'opben yItchu'bogh QoQ ghom
> ("marching band") vIjeSpu' jIH 'ej ghom SeghvetlhvaD pIj qay' muD Dotlh.

SISchugh neH, mamuch. matlhchu' 'IjwI'pu'maj. 'ach muDDaq 'ul 
tu'lu'chugh mamuch SIbI' net qIl.

> QoQ jan Dachu''a' qoj bIbom'a'? QoQ jan Dachu'chugh yIngu'.

QInwIjDaq vIngu'pu'. gheb'e' vIchu'. chaq 'oHvaD France gheb Dapong, 
'ach France 'oHbe' mungDaj'e'.

>> I was thinking about how Okrand side-stepped the issue of the subject of
>> SIS (and peD) by simply looking up and saying, {SIS!} Although Klingon
>> has no inflection for infinitives†, I wonder if speaking of the weather
>> is done by treating the weather-verb as an infinitive.
>>
>> In English we avoid the infinitive by adding a dummy subject, "it."
>> Klingon might also be treating this as an infinitive verb, but without a
>> form for infinitive it just uses the verb without a subject.
>
> How would you tell the difference? Without the verb prefix to tell one way
> or another it's impossible to work out. Even in those languages where the
> verb doesn't take an overt subject, there's usually a particular finite
> form of the verb chosen (so Spanish uses "llueve", third-person singular,
> instead of its true infinitive "llover").
>
> I guess the only way to determine whether this is also true for Klingon is
> to find out what would happen with {SISmoH} with plural subject. Would it
> be {loSmaH pem loSmaH ram je SISmoH Qunpu'}, or {...*lu*SISmoH Qunpu'}?

I'd go for the former, according to my hypothesis, but without a 
canonical example we cannot tell for sure.

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/