In PB we read the sentence: *ghaytanHa' QapDI' SuvtaH*. The literal meaning is something like *When it was unlikely that he would win, he still fought* (I hope my English is here right!). Is always the meaning of *ghaytanHa' Qap* *it's unlikely that he will win*, or is it also possible to interpret it as *he wins in an unlikely manner*, i.e., *he wins although it was unlikely*. And if not, how could this meaning be rendered? Thank you!
On 9/16/2021 6:13 AM, luis.chaparro@web.de wrote:
In PB we read the sentence:*ghaytanHa' QapDI' SuvtaH*. The literal meaning is something like*When it was unlikely that he would win, he still fought* (I hope my English is here right!). Is always the meaning of*ghaytanHa' Qap* *it's unlikely that he will win*, or is it also possible to interpret it as*he wins in an unlikely manner*, i.e.,*he wins although it was unlikely*. And if not, how could this meaning be rendered?
*DaH tIQoy ghaytanHa' QapDI' SuvtaH Qunpu' Suvpu'* /[Hear now] Of one who fought Against the odds, And even Gods./ So far as we've ever seen, *ghaytan* and *ghaytanHa'* refer to the likelihood that a hypothetical action will happen, not the likeliness of an action that actually happens. To express this, I might say *ghaytanHa' Qap, 'ach Qap */He was unlikely to win, but he wins./ Or I might emulate the /paq'batlh/ example and say *ghaytanHa' QapDI', Qap*/He wins when he is unlikely to win./ // / -- SuStel http://trimboli.name /
To be honest, when I see {ghaytanHa’ QapDI’ SuvtaH}, I read it as “It’s unlikely that he continues fighting when he wins.” In other words, he fights, then he wins, then he stops fighting. That seems pretty normal. In the name of honor, most of us stop fighting when we win, except perhaps to go off and fight someone else somewhere else. We fight to win. We don’t fight to continue beating up the vanquished. For your intended initial meaning, I’d say something more like {Qap’a’? SaHbe’. SuvtaH.} "Will he win? He doesn’t care. He’s always fighting." Remember that in Klingon, it is unnecessary to pack too much meaning into one sentence if it can be more clearly said broken out into multiple sentences, strung together by the thread of the story; the context shared by all the sentences. English has more grammatical tools to pack a larger collection of meanings into a single sentence. You create unnecessary problems when you try to make any single English sentence a Klingon sentence regardless of its complexity out of a false sense that translation implies preserving both the grammar and the sentence boundaries of the original. Meanwhile, when you try to say, “He wins although it was unlikely,” you stumble into a void of support in Klingon grammar. Linguists call this “irrealis”. You are describing a hypothetical world different from this one. In this world, he won. In this other world, he wouldn’t have won. This might possibly be a cultural issue in Klingon. He won. Done. Get over any idea about him not winning. We don’t care about that. It doesn’t matter how unlikely it would have been that he won if he won. If you want to say this, anyway, you have to get somewhat creative and literal. {not QaplaH net pIH, ‘ach reH SuvqangtaH.} “One expects that he can never win, but he is always willing to fight." pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)
On Sep 16, 2021, at 6:13 AM, luis.chaparro@web.de wrote:
In PB we read the sentence: *ghaytanHa' QapDI' SuvtaH*. The literal meaning is something like *When it was unlikely that he would win, he still fought* (I hope my English is here right!). Is always the meaning of *ghaytanHa' Qap* *it's unlikely that he will win*, or is it also possible to interpret it as *he wins in an unlikely manner*, i.e., *he wins although it was unlikely*. And if not, how could this meaning be rendered?
Thank you! _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 9/16/2021 9:11 AM, Will Martin wrote:
To be honest, when I see {ghaytanHa’ QapDI’ SuvtaH}, I read it as “It’s unlikely that he continues fighting when he wins.” In other words, he fights, then he wins, then he stops fighting.
Adverbials generally appear to attach to individual clauses, so I don't know if this interpretation is possible. That is to say, to get your meaning, you'd need to say, *QapDI', ghaytanHa' SuvtaH.* But this touches upon questions of whether Klingon allows things like parenthetical insertions in the middle of sentences.
For your intended initial meaning, I’d say something more like {Qap’a’? SaHbe’. SuvtaH.} "Will he win? He doesn’t care. He’s always fighting."
Remember that in Klingon, it is unnecessary to pack too much meaning into one sentence if it can be more clearly said broken out into multiple sentences, strung together by the thread of the story; the context shared by all the sentences.
Okrand was also somewhat constrained by a verse structure. Unlike most of /paq'batlh,/ the English original and the Klingon translation don't line up according to stanza in this section, showing some strain in trying to cover every sense in the original. In this case, however, I don't see too much information being packed in here inappropriately. If I may add some clarifying punctuation: *ghaytanHa' QapDI', SuvtaH.*/When it is unlikely that he will win, he keeps fighting./ In other words, he goes on fighting against the odds. It's all there, and it's in a fairly simple form already. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Interesting. I was seeing {QapDI’} functioning as a time stamp, and as such, like the adverbial, it was one of those things at the beginning of the main clause. The precise sequence isn’t strictly defined. I haven’t noticed examples of other stuff, like time stamps, coming before adverbials, so I was expecting the adverbial to start the sequence, then the time stamp, then the main clause, with everything at the start of the sentence (adverbial and time stamp) applying to the main clause. I’m guess {QapDI’ ghaytanHa’ SuvtaH} is valid. It just didn’t occur to me. So, if {ghaytanHa’ QapDI’} is a dependent clause… “Unlikely, when he wins” becomes the time stamp for {SuvtaH}. And I become confused. It sounds more like “Unlikely, when he wins, he continues fighting.” So, he probably doesn’t continue fighting when he wins. So, I guess he quits fighting when he wins, right? I don’t really see that as “When he unlikely wins…” and even less as “When he is unlikely to win…” Sorry. I just don’t see that. I could chop it up in a word salad and toss it into the air and pick out that meaning, if I really, really wanted to, but I can’t see it simply meaning that. Let’s drop the {-Ha’} just to make it simpler. {ghaytan QapDI’} “Likely, when he wins…” is not the same as “When he likely wins…” and I’m pretty sure the the former is the more typical interpretation. I apologize for being dense here. I just don’t get that interpretation. The {-DI’} in combination with the {ghaytanHa’} just confuses me. It seems like it would be so much simpler to say it some other way more clearly.
On Sep 16, 2021, at 9:32 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 9/16/2021 9:11 AM, Will Martin wrote:
To be honest, when I see {ghaytanHa’ QapDI’ SuvtaH}, I read it as “It’s unlikely that he continues fighting when he wins.” In other words, he fights, then he wins, then he stops fighting. Adverbials generally appear to attach to individual clauses, so I don't know if this interpretation is possible. That is to say, to get your meaning, you'd need to say, QapDI', ghaytanHa' SuvtaH. But this touches upon questions of whether Klingon allows things like parenthetical insertions in the middle of sentences.
For your intended initial meaning, I’d say something more like {Qap’a’? SaHbe’. SuvtaH.} "Will he win? He doesn’t care. He’s always fighting."
Remember that in Klingon, it is unnecessary to pack too much meaning into one sentence if it can be more clearly said broken out into multiple sentences, strung together by the thread of the story; the context shared by all the sentences.
Okrand was also somewhat constrained by a verse structure. Unlike most of paq'batlh, the English original and the Klingon translation don't line up according to stanza in this section, showing some strain in trying to cover every sense in the original.
In this case, however, I don't see too much information being packed in here inappropriately. If I may add some clarifying punctuation: ghaytanHa' QapDI', SuvtaH. When it is unlikely that he will win, he keeps fighting. In other words, he goes on fighting against the odds. It's all there, and it's in a fairly simple form already.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 9/16/2021 10:12 AM, Will Martin wrote:
Interesting.
I was seeing {QapDI’} functioning as a time stamp, and as such, like the adverbial, it was one of those things at the beginning of the main clause. The precise sequence isn’t strictly defined. I haven’t noticed examples of other stuff, like time stamps, coming before adverbials, so I was expecting the adverbial to start the sequence, then the time stamp, then the main clause, with everything at the start of the sentence (adverbial and time stamp) applying to the main clause.
Well, remember that "time stamp" is not something explicitly defined for us. Okrand discusses "time elements" in section 6.7 in the Addendum, but he seems to be talking about noun phrases that refer to times, not every phrase that refers to a time. It's perfectly clear that you can have expressions of time in places other than the beginning. *cha yIbaH, qara'DI'*/Fire the torpedoes at my command!/ Subordinate clauses are allowed to follow independent clauses, even when they express times. If /when I see you/ is not time-like enough for you, I could also say *cha yIbaH**, wa'logh Qoylu'pu'DI'*/Fire the torpedoes at one o'clock!/ Actual time elements of the kind described in TKD are apparently also part of the clause to which they are attached, as they "precede the adverbial." In theory, and for the moment ignoring copulas, comparatives, and superlatives, the complete clause structure of Klingon appears to be: <time elements> <adverbials and syntactic noun phrases> <object> <verb> <subject> When dealing with multiple independent, purpose, or subordinate clauses, you apparently shove complete clauses next to each other; you don't splice clauses inside other clauses. This is not a rule that Okrand has stated; it appears to be the case based on canon. Some people are less strict about it than others. Qa'yIn, for instance, likes to splice in parenthetical phrases. He might write something like *DaHjaj, jISoptaHvIS, vIghro' vIyach.* What he means is to combine the independent clause *DaHjaj vIghro' vIyach*/Today I pet a cat/ and *jISoptaHvIS*/while I was eating./ Personally, I would resist splicing clauses like this, and I would move the subordinate clause to the end: *DaHjaj vIgho' vIyach, jISoptaHvIS.* But we have no information on what Klingons would have to say about splices like this, other than a general lack of it.
So, if {ghaytanHa’ QapDI’} is a dependent clause… “Unlikely, when he wins” becomes the time stamp for {SuvtaH}.
And I become confused. It sounds more like “Unlikely, when he wins, he continues fighting.” So, he probably doesn’t continue fighting when he wins. So, I guess he quits fighting when he wins, right?
You're still doing the parenthetical insertion in your English thinking, applying the /unlikely/ to the /he continues fighting/ instead of the /he wins./
I don’t really see that as “When he unlikely wins…” and even less as “When he is unlikely to win…” Sorry. I just don’t see that. I could chop it up in a word salad and toss it into the air and pick out that meaning, if I really, really wanted to, but I can’t see it simply meaning that.
Let’s drop the {-Ha’} just to make it simpler.
{ghaytan QapDI’} “Likely, when he wins…” is not the same as “When he likely wins…” and I’m pretty sure the the former is the more typical interpretation.
*nom Sop*/He eats quickly. /*nom SopDI'*/He eats quickly, and when that happens.../ *ghaytan Qap*/He is likely to win. /*ghaytan QapDI'* /He is likely to win, and when that happens.../ Adding *-DI'* just means /and when the sentence that I'm attached to happens.../ You just have to step away from the way English phrases things and see the meaning only in the Klingon that appears. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Yep. I’ve been away from this too long. Gotten flabby. Need more exercise...
On Sep 16, 2021, at 10:36 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 9/16/2021 10:12 AM, Will Martin wrote:
Interesting.
I was seeing {QapDI’} functioning as a time stamp, and as such, like the adverbial, it was one of those things at the beginning of the main clause. The precise sequence isn’t strictly defined. I haven’t noticed examples of other stuff, like time stamps, coming before adverbials, so I was expecting the adverbial to start the sequence, then the time stamp, then the main clause, with everything at the start of the sentence (adverbial and time stamp) applying to the main clause. Well, remember that "time stamp" is not something explicitly defined for us. Okrand discusses "time elements" in section 6.7 in the Addendum, but he seems to be talking about noun phrases that refer to times, not every phrase that refers to a time.
It's perfectly clear that you can have expressions of time in places other than the beginning. cha yIbaH, qara'DI' Fire the torpedoes at my command! Subordinate clauses are allowed to follow independent clauses, even when they express times. If when I see you is not time-like enough for you, I could also say cha yIbaH, wa'logh Qoylu'pu'DI' Fire the torpedoes at one o'clock!
Actual time elements of the kind described in TKD are apparently also part of the clause to which they are attached, as they "precede the adverbial."
In theory, and for the moment ignoring copulas, comparatives, and superlatives, the complete clause structure of Klingon appears to be:
<time elements> <adverbials and syntactic noun phrases> <object> <verb> <subject>
When dealing with multiple independent, purpose, or subordinate clauses, you apparently shove complete clauses next to each other; you don't splice clauses inside other clauses.
This is not a rule that Okrand has stated; it appears to be the case based on canon. Some people are less strict about it than others. Qa'yIn, for instance, likes to splice in parenthetical phrases. He might write something like DaHjaj, jISoptaHvIS, vIghro' vIyach. What he means is to combine the independent clause DaHjaj vIghro' vIyach Today I pet a cat and jISoptaHvIS while I was eating. Personally, I would resist splicing clauses like this, and I would move the subordinate clause to the end: DaHjaj vIgho' vIyach, jISoptaHvIS. But we have no information on what Klingons would have to say about splices like this, other than a general lack of it.
So, if {ghaytanHa’ QapDI’} is a dependent clause… “Unlikely, when he wins” becomes the time stamp for {SuvtaH}.
And I become confused. It sounds more like “Unlikely, when he wins, he continues fighting.” So, he probably doesn’t continue fighting when he wins. So, I guess he quits fighting when he wins, right? You're still doing the parenthetical insertion in your English thinking, applying the unlikely to the he continues fighting instead of the he wins.
I don’t really see that as “When he unlikely wins…” and even less as “When he is unlikely to win…” Sorry. I just don’t see that. I could chop it up in a word salad and toss it into the air and pick out that meaning, if I really, really wanted to, but I can’t see it simply meaning that.
Let’s drop the {-Ha’} just to make it simpler.
{ghaytan QapDI’} “Likely, when he wins…” is not the same as “When he likely wins…” and I’m pretty sure the the former is the more typical interpretation.
nom Sop He eats quickly. nom SopDI' He eats quickly, and when that happens...
ghaytan Qap He is likely to win. ghaytan QapDI' He is likely to win, and when that happens...
Adding -DI' just means and when the sentence that I'm attached to happens...
You just have to step away from the way English phrases things and see the meaning only in the Klingon that appears.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
participants (3)
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luis.chaparro＠web.de -
SuStel -
Will Martin