[Tlhingan-hol] Weather infinitives

[ghunchu'wI']

On Jul 23, 2012, at 3:35 PM, David Trimboli <david at trimboli.name> wrote:

[In case it isn't intentional, you should know that you're still replying to the list in a way that is keeping your messages from being archived.]

> On 7/23/2012 3:06 PM, ghunchu'wI' 'utlh wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 2:13 PM, David Trimboli <david at trimboli.name> wrote:
>>> I was thinking about how Okrand side-stepped the issue of the subject of SIS
>>> (and peD) by simply looking up and saying, {SIS!}
>> 
>> He didn't sidestep it. He didn't state the subject when he *used* the
>> word, but he had already indicated what it was.
> 
> And what was it? What did he indicate that it is? Nowhere in DloraH's post can I find anywhere that says that Okrand actually told him what the implied subject is.

It seems to me that you did find it:

> He said you *could* talk about the clouds raining cats and dogs,...

See? You can't get much more explicit than that. Are you honestly saying that you don't think "clouds" is a subject?

> but this is different than just talking about the weather. It's similar in English: you wouldn't say "the clouds are raining" to say that it's raining outside.

Sure I would. I actually *did* say that last week. But what you or I would or would not say in English (or French, or Russian, etc.) has nothing to do with Klingon. We have it only slightly less than directly from Marc Okrand that the implied subject is clouds. The hypothetical "cats and dogs" was to show an optional *object* The suggestion of a missing subject was already dismissed as grammatical but undesirable:

>> | SISlu', altho grammaticlly correct, he didn't particularly like.  Someone
>> | COULD use it but to me it sounds like they skipped science class and don't
>> | know what the subject is.

How can you read that and think that it says {SIS} has no subject?

>> | You can also give it an object and say things like the clouds rained down
>> | cats and dogs. ...or something like that; you get the idea.
>> 
>>> Although Klingon has no
>>> inflection for infinitives†, I wonder if speaking of the weather is done by
>>> treating the weather-verb as an infinitive.
>> 
>> What reason is there to think that might be the case?
> 
> Because all of the examples of speaking of the weather that Okrand gives in DloraH's report have no subject.

They all have no *explicit* subject -- except for the one that does.

> Because it seems that using no subject is the correct way of speaking about the weather in a general way.

Maybe I'm just reading more into the "no subject" idea than you are intending. I agree that it appears to be most natural to leave the subject unstated when saying it's raining in Klingon. That's a far cry from saying that {SIS} could be an exceptional verb that naturally lacks a subject entirely, which is what I thought you were doing.

> Because I'm *WONDERING* and not looking to be groused at.

You're wondering about a possibility that has an explicit counterexample. I don't think asking why you're doing that deserves to be called "grousing".

>> Unless you've forgotten about the "indefinite subject" suffix {-lu'}
>> -- and I know you haven't -- I don't understand what you mean when you
>> say "Klingon has no inflection for infinitives".
> 
> -lu' does not form an infinitive, it forms a verb with an impersonal subject. An impersonal subject *is* a particular subject: it's the impersonal one. There's a big difference.

Is it the difference between "impersonal" and "indefinite"? {-lu'} is the latter. I don't think TKD's label of "indefinite subject" is compatible with your calling it a "particular subject".
Perhaps you *have* forgotten what {-lu'} means. It's more likely that I don't understand your use of the term "infinitive" here, though the way you defined it for us as a verb not having a specific subject should have helped.

-- ghunchu'wI'