[Tlhingan-hol] Interactions between verb suffixes

[Will Martin]

True floaters have a reason to modify “all that precedes them”, but suffixes with fixed positions have a problem with that idea, since their positions are defined by grammatical rule, rather than by semantical emphasis. Add that in cases of multiple fixed suffixes combined with the true floater, there still may be circumstances where the boundaries for what the floater is negating can get squishy.

Basically, I think it is dangerous to treat the application of a suffix like some kind of mathematical function with a precise answer for the scope of functionality of the suffix.

In math, we have the option of using parentheses to mark out the scope and priority in terms of the effects of math functions. In the Klingon language, we don’t have that.

So, if it is REALLY IMPORTANT TO YOU to control EXACTLY WHAT SOMETHING MEANS, just as in any natural language, it is good to use more words, and perhaps even multiple sentences in order to eliminate what you don’t mean and emphasize what you do mean.

A more general truth is that I have ideas and I try to express them in words using imperfect tools, and you read or hear the words and you try to figure out what my idea was, using imperfect tools, and most of the time, the imperfect communication works well enough, so we don’t worry about it too much.

When it doesn’t work so well, we continue to try to communicate until we either gain a better understanding, or until something in life distracts us SQUIRREL!

… enough that we forget what we were talking about and go eat lunch or something and life continues to give us other things to think about.

What was that middle thing?

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Dec 18, 2015, at 8:24 AM, Bellerophon, modeler <bellerophon.modeler at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> De'vID wrote:
> 
> Is anything needed here which isn't in TKD?
> 
> 4.2.2: Suffixes of this type express how much choice the subject has
> about the action described or how predisposed the subject is to doing
> it. {-nIS} need.
> 
> 4.2.4: {-moH} cause. Adding this suffix to a verb indicates that the
> subject is causing a change of condition or causing a new condition to
> come into existence.
> 
> 4.2.7: {-pu'} perfective. This suffix indicates that an action is
> completed. It is often translated by the English present perfect (have
> done something).
> 
> {vISay'nISmoH} means that I cause something to be clean, and I need
> that to be done. That means "I need to clean something", not "I cause
> something to need to be clean", since the subject of the verb is doing
> the needing.
> 
> Also in TKD is {HeghqangmoHlu'pu'} <it made him/her willing to die>.
> Perhaps {-lu} makes this an exceptional case, since presumably you wouldn't be discussing the volition of an indefinite/unspecified subject. However, would {vIHeghqangmoHpu'} mean <I made him/her willing to die> or <I willingly made him/her die>? The former, I think, since if I made him die, I must have killed him, so I'd simply say {vIHoHqangpu'} <I killed him/her willingly>. (Though this could generally mean <I complete being willing to kill him/her>. Killing or changing one's mind are the two ways the perfective aspect would enter into this. The ambiguity makes me think this would be a perfect response by the huntsman when the queen asks if he's killed Snow White.)
> So in this example from TKD, cause and perfective aspect are on the part of the unspecified object, but the (presumably still incomplete) action and volition are clearly on the part of the object.
> 
> It seems to me semantics intrudes into the grammar, and the scope of the suffixes has to do with the fact that there are two agents, the one who is willing to die and the one that has caused/will have caused this new condition. The context is important, but I'd rather not just leave it at that. Saying "depends on context" sounds a lot like a professor dismissing a student's question that he isn't interested in discussing.
> 
> ~'eD
> 
> -- 
> My modeling blog:          http://bellerophon-modeler.blogspot.com/ <http://bellerophon-modeler.blogspot.com/>
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