[Tlhingan-hol] Weather infinitives

[David Trimboli]

On 7/24/2012 10:31 AM, Robyn Stewart wrote:
>
> I think it's an elided, unstated subject almost. perfectly analogous
> to English "it" in the equivalent statement.

But what you describe isn't analogous to the English. In English "it" 
doesn't refer to an unstated antecedent noun like "the sky" or "the 
clouds." (You wouldn't look up and say "They are raining.") "It" is a 
dummy subject used because English requires an explicit noun there, but 
none is being expressed.

This is why I wondered if Klingon does something similar, only using an 
uninflected, kinda-sorta "infinitive" verb rather than a dummy subject. 
In the same instances where English would use "it," Klingon uses a 
subjectless, non-finite verb, because no subject is being referred to.

Non-finite verbs are not unknown in Klingon. There's one in {ghojmeH 
taj}, for example: {taj} is not the subject of {ghojmeH}; in fact, 
{ghojmeH} doesn't *have* a subject. It's the idea of learning without 
being attached to a particular learner. That's what I'm suggesting with 
the weather verbs: they can express a "weather action" not being 
performed by any given subject, even if something objectively makes them 
happen. Yes, the atmosphere rains, but I'm not talking about what the 
atmosphere is doing; I'm talking about the rainy weather. "It's 
raining," not "the sky is raining." Both are legitimate English 
sentences, but only one is used colloquially to discuss the weather.

Given that Okrand accepts all of DloraH's examples that lack subjects, 
but balks when he suggests an indefinite subject (which *is* a kind of 
subject, even if it is indefinite), I thought the idea had merit.

> I think a Klingon pressured to provide the subject would respond
> pretty much the way a non-linguistically read  English speaker would:
> perhaps suggest muD/'eng/chal/qo' or just say that there isn't one,
> it's just the way you say it.

Right. An English speaker would normally say "it's raining," but if 
pressed to explain what "it" is, would *have to think about and choose* 
an antecedent. But he would never say conversationally, "The sky is 
raining."

> I think it came about that it works this way in Klingon because
> Enfludh is Marc's native language and when he isn't going out of his
> way to find an alien  way to do something, he falls back on what
> comes naturally to him.

He does this sometimes, but he usually does it when he's not focusing on 
the grammar in question (i.e., he does it subconsciously). Whenever he 
is explaining grammar to us, he goes out of his way to think carefully 
about it before telling us. My own impression, not backed up by any 
evidence, is that he was perfectly aware of what he was doing with 
{SIS}, whether it was analogous to the English dummy "it" or not.

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