On Jan 10, 2020, at 4:23 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
All you get out this uncommon parsing is, “It is not the case that I destroyed my life because of her.”
That’s kind of vague, don’t you think?No, I don't. Not at all.
I see it as very different from the canon example that first suggested that this grammar works. A Klingon mother manipulates her child into eating everything served him by suggesting that if he doesn’t, then {batlh bIHeghbe’.}
A Klingon would not misinterpret this as “You will honorably not-die,” because, whether you like it or not, Klingon culture heavily contrasts American and Western European culture in terms of in the attitude concerning death. Klingons know that we will all die and they are quite open about it. There is no option to honorably not die. You can live honorably, but that’s not the same thing as honorably not dying, because YOU WILL DIE. There is no option to not die. All lives end.
Humans speak most often in euphemisms to avoid the topic entirely. “My uncle passed away. He is no longer with us.”
This is a ludicrous argument. The issue here is that English has prepositions and Klingon doesn't. It has nothing to do with the difference between how Klingons and Humans persuade their kids to eat their dinners. In English we have the preposition without, but in Klingon we don't. This phrase was obviously invented before Okrand had decided that you can add -Ha' to adverbials; the sentence Hoch DaSopbe'chugh batlhHa' bIHegh would also be perfectly valid. But because batlh bIHeghbe' appears, if we suppose it is not an error, then we must conclude that the -be' applies to the adverbial or the entire sentence.
Yes, the difference between honorably not-dying and not-honorably
dying is clear by context. That's not the issue. The issue is
WHETHER IT'S GRAMMATICAL, not whether context tells you which way
to interpret it. The context is obvious. Even if the sentence is
ungrammatical, you'd still understand the context, but you
couldn't use it because it's ungrammatical.
Ask a human how they wish to die, and the response is typically quite different from a Klingon. A Klingon would quite comfortably suggest {batlh jIHegh vIneH.} A human would more typically evade or redirect the conversation.
So, when a mother suggests, {batlh bIHeghbe’}, it’s obvious her message is, “The path between you and an honorable death is THROUGH MY COOKING. If you don’t eat what I feed you, you will die ignominiously. Your relatives will spit at the mention of your name. You will be shunned by your superiors. NOW EAT!”
Does your mind always work on an exaggeration level of 11?
If you tell me {ghaHmo’ yInwIj vIQaw’be’}, my natural response is a mixture of {nuqjatlh?} and {nuqneH?}
There’s no time stamp, so I don’t even know whether you are talking about the past or the future. I consider the past and reject it. You are here. You are alive. You’ve obviously not destroyed your life. Why bother me with something so obvious? What is it supposed to mean to me?
It's not supposed to mean anything to you. mayqel stated
explicitly that he was ruminating about an ex, and this sentence
was his thought. There's your context: thinking about an ex. Since
he understands his own context, he has everything he needs to
understand the context of his sentence.
I consider the present. This isn’t the middle east. She’s not handing you an explosive vest. You aren’t dressed as a samurai. She’s not handing you a short sword. There is no evidence that suggests that she is the cause of you destroying your life, so again, you seem to be telling me something obvious.
He's not telling you anything. He's ruminating to himself.
For someone so obsessed with grammar-according-to-context, you
don't seem to be very good at figuring out the context.
Klingons are rude. And your point is...?Three: Accusing people or their writing of being "vague, wittering, and indecisive" is RUDE. Especially by turning it into a catchphrase. It's not funny.
Klingons are not rude. Klingons follow elaborate codes of honor and behavior. Klingons tend not to have the wheel-greasing utterances that humans have, and humans may consider this rude, but they don't go out of their way to insult people and then claim their culture made them do it — except in the case of Curse Warfare, which is an activity that all parties mutually agree to participate in. This is not Curse Warfare.
And if you're pretending to be a Klingon as an excuse for being
rude to people, at least do us the very Klingon courtesy of
translating the phrase into Klingon.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name