[Tlhingan-hol] Weather infinitives

[Robyn Stewart]

At 13:03 '?????' 7/24/2012, David Trimboli wrote:
>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.

I say "elided, unstated subject" you say "dummy subject," I am 
referring to the same thing.  The "it" and the 3rd person subject of 
SIS and peD are the same unspecified but everyone accepts it thing.

>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.

I think if you're going to be very particular over terminology like 
"dummy" versus "elided, unstated," you're leaving yourself open to 
being absolutely savaged by calling SIS an infinitive. I've been 
guilty lately of treating 0-prefix verbs as infinitives, because I'm 
studying a launguage with a lot of modal verb+infinitive 
constructions, but I know they aren't.

>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.

I'm fine with that. I don't know that anyone would disagree that that 
is what is happening.

>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.

And I believe likewise in Klingon. I resisted using SIS and peD at 
all in Klingon for years because I knew that to just say it like that 
without a stated subject was to copy the way English does it, and I 
was trying very hard not to just fill in English in the gaps in Klingon.

>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.

We'll he didn't say it was wrong, just that it sounds like you don't 
know where the rain comes from. That still fits the "it rains" 
framework to me.

>>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."

Agreed.

>>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.

Remember he wrote it when he wrote TKD1. Do you think he considered 
how it was used then, or just threw it in because it was in a basic 
terms glossary for someother languagehe had on his desk at the 
moment. I adore (as annoying as they are) the "how do you use THIS?" 
terms that are thrown in. It's so like a collection made in the 
field, at the whim of the linguist and the subject.

- Qov