Using -ta' during -taHvIS
Suppose I write: {qaStaHvIS wa'maH DIS, vIghro' vIje'ta'}. What does it mean ? "During ten years, I fed the cat once" "During ten years, I fed the cat an unspecified number of times" "During ten years, I was constantly feeding the cat" Which of the sentences above, correctly describes the meaning of the original klingon sentence ? ~ mayqel *capricorn* qunen'oS
On 2/25/2019 9:42 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
Suppose I write: {qaStaHvIS wa'maH DIS, vIghro' vIje'ta'}.
What does it mean ? "During ten years, I fed the cat once" "During ten years, I fed the cat an unspecified number of times" "During ten years, I was constantly feeding the cat"
Which of the sentences above, correctly describes the meaning of the original klingon sentence ?
It could be any or all of them. Exactly what they say are different things. The sentence describes "completed feeding." Whether you did it once or multiple times isn't specified, just that the feeding is completed during the ten years. Being completed, it is no longer the case that you feed the cat. A similar ambiguity exists in English: /Over ten years, I fed the cat./ It /could /mean that you fed the cat exactly once during that ten years, but without context lending itself to that interpretation, it's more likely to mean that you were responsible for the feeding of the cat during the ten years. The Klingon is ambiguous as to the number of individual feedings, but it is explicit, where the English is not, that the feeding is no longer active, and that it ended sometime during the ten years. If, on the other hand, you just want to express that you were discharging your feeding duties over ten years, you probably shouldn't use perfective at all: *qaStaHvIS wa'maH DIS, vIghro' vIje'* /I fed the cat over ten years./ This does not say anything about whether you stopped feeding the cat after the ten years was up. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
If you make a vague statement in Klingon, we can’t decide which of three precise English sentences it means. The Klingon sentence you’ve made is ambiguous, as has been pointed out. Context could disambiguate, or you could consider translating each of your meanings more precisely: During ten years, I fed the cat once. qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS wa’logh vIghro’ vIje’. During ten years, I fed the cat an unspecified number of times. qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS rut vIghro’ vije. During ten years, I was constantly feeding the cat. qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS reH vIghro’ vIje’taH. Note this sounds like an exaggeration, since no cat would tolerate you constantly bothering it with food it didn’t want. Perhaps: qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS, qaSDI' Hoch jaj wa’logh vIghro’ vije’. I have a nagging feeling that I should have said {jaj Hoch} instead of {Hoch jaj}. One means “every” and the other means “each”, and I don’t remember which is which. This is a great opportunity for someone to correct me. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Feb 25, 2019, at 9:42 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
Suppose I write: {qaStaHvIS wa'maH DIS, vIghro' vIje'ta'}.
What does it mean ? "During ten years, I fed the cat once" "During ten years, I fed the cat an unspecified number of times" "During ten years, I was constantly feeding the cat"
Which of the sentences above, correctly describes the meaning of the original klingon sentence ?
~ mayqel *capricorn* qunen'oS _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
Hoch jaj — all the days Hoch jajmey — each day jaj Hoch — all day —jevreH Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 25, 2019, at 14:16, Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
If you make a vague statement in Klingon, we can’t decide which of three precise English sentences it means.
The Klingon sentence you’ve made is ambiguous, as has been pointed out. Context could disambiguate, or you could consider translating each of your meanings more precisely:
During ten years, I fed the cat once.
qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS wa’logh vIghro’ vIje’.
During ten years, I fed the cat an unspecified number of times.
qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS rut vIghro’ vije.
During ten years, I was constantly feeding the cat.
qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS reH vIghro’ vIje’taH.
Note this sounds like an exaggeration, since no cat would tolerate you constantly bothering it with food it didn’t want.
Perhaps:
qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS, qaSDI' Hoch jaj wa’logh vIghro’ vije’.
I have a nagging feeling that I should have said {jaj Hoch} instead of {Hoch jaj}. One means “every” and the other means “each”, and I don’t remember which is which.
This is a great opportunity for someone to correct me.
charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan
rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Feb 25, 2019, at 9:42 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
Suppose I write: {qaStaHvIS wa'maH DIS, vIghro' vIje'ta'}.
What does it mean ? "During ten years, I fed the cat once" "During ten years, I fed the cat an unspecified number of times" "During ten years, I was constantly feeding the cat"
Which of the sentences above, correctly describes the meaning of the original klingon sentence ?
~ mayqel *capricorn* qunen'oS _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
charghwI':
During ten years, I fed the cat once.
qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS wa’logh vIghro’
vIje’.
Why didn't you place -ta' on the vIje' ? charghwI':
During ten years, I fed the cat an
unspecified number of times.
qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS rut vIghro’ vije.
Again, why didn't you place a -ta' on the vIje' ? charghwI':
qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS, qaSDI' Hoch jaj
wa’logh vIghro’ vije’
Again, why not vIje'ta' ? Don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to correct you. I'm only asking because I don't understand the missing -ta'. As far as the Hoch goes, I'm afraid jevreH mixed up the corresponding meanings. Hoch jaj = each day Hoch jajmey = all days jaj Hoch = all of the day jajmey Hoch = all of the days kgt p.55, HQ 5.2 p.11 jun 1996 Of course, since the HolQeD transcription project went to the toilet, don't ask me what's actually written in the issue that I mentioned. It is just, that a little bird told me, that there's something there with regards to the Hoch. ~ Capricorn
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 25, 2019, at 14:32, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote: As far as the Hoch goes, I'm afraid jevreH mixed up the corresponding meanings.
Hoch jaj = each day Hoch jajmey = all days jaj Hoch = all of the day jajmey Hoch = all of the days
HIvqa’ veqlargh.
Is feeding a cat really that much of an accomplishment? Is it that important to point out that you had planned feeding the cat as your goal and that you successfully reached that goal? If so, then by all means, use {-ta’}. Why bother with a suffix if it doesn’t really add much to the meaning? It’s okay to omit it. I don’t have to explain to you why I omitted it. I did not make a mistake by omitting it. I would not have made a mistake by including it. It’s my choice. I can say it the way I want to say it. Remember that {-ta’} is not “past tense, plus an expression that the action was intentional”. Okrand did originally intend to have tense in the language, but the evolution of the language (because of movie subtitles that were changed) swept that intent aside and replaced it with the “aspect”. This point has been argued a lot, many times, but what it comes down to is that time stamps in Klingon may or may not imply a duration. They tell you when something happened, and that time reference could be an instant, or it could be a minute long, or an hour long, or a day long, or a year long, or a decade long, or a century long, etc. You have to factor in the duration of the time stamp. The {-‘pu’} and {-ta’} suffixes have everything to do with the moment that the action of the verb was completed. It’s definitely okay to use these suffixes if your intent is to say that the action was completed before the time period indicated by the time stamp. It’s also okay if your intent is to say that it’s completed during the duration of the time stamp. The main thing to realize is that it brings focus to the completion of the act, rather than the doing of the act. Consider the difference between the following in English and Klingon: "I fed the cat every day." {Hoch jaj vIghro’ vIje’.} This is simple past tense. Klingon doesn’t indicate past tense. Today, I go to the store. Yesterday, I go to the store. Tomorrow, I go to the store. There is no tense. Get used to it. Time stamp, yes. Tense, no. “I intentionally accomplished feeding the cat every day.” {Hoch jaj vIghro’ vIje’ta’.} There’s still no tense indicated here. The time stamp, “every day” includes a time when the feeding of the cat was complete, and the accomplishment of that completion had been previously planned, and the plan was executed successfully. “I had fed the cat every day.” {Hoch jaj vIghro’ vIje’pu’.} There was a time within each day that the cat had been fed, and I was the one who did it. I didn’t start feeding it and then wait until sunrise and finish slightly after sunrise, allowing a day to pass without the cat having finished a day without being completely fed. The fact of my feeding it is not really that important. The fact that the act of feeding by me was completed within the time stamp. That’s where the focus of meaning is. Was there a plan? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t care to express whether or not there was a goal or plan here. I’m merely letting you know that within the time period referred to by the time stamp, the end of the act of feeding the cat was reached, sufficient that nobody would suggest that the cat had been incompletely fed during the time stamp. The cat did not continue to require food after I fed it, so I stopped feeding it. Done. Every day, done. Am I making sense here? charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Feb 25, 2019, at 2:32 PM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
charghwI':
During ten years, I fed the cat once. qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS wa’logh vIghro’ vIje’.
Why didn't you place -ta' on the vIje' ?
charghwI':
During ten years, I fed the cat an unspecified number of times. qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS rut vIghro’ vije.
Again, why didn't you place a -ta' on the vIje' ?
charghwI':
qaStaHvIS wa’maH DIS, qaSDI' Hoch jaj wa’logh vIghro’ vije’
Again, why not vIje'ta' ?
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to correct you. I'm only asking because I don't understand the missing -ta'.
As far as the Hoch goes, I'm afraid jevreH mixed up the corresponding meanings.
Hoch jaj = each day Hoch jajmey = all days jaj Hoch = all of the day jajmey Hoch = all of the days
kgt p.55, HQ 5.2 p.11 jun 1996
Of course, since the HolQeD transcription project went to the toilet, don't ask me what's actually written in the issue that I mentioned.
It is just, that a little bird told me, that there's something there with regards to the Hoch.
~ Capricorn
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On 2/25/2019 3:42 PM, Will Martin wrote:
Is feeding a cat really that much of an accomplishment? Is it that important to point out that you had planned feeding the cat as your goal and that you successfully reached that goal? If so, then by all means, use {-ta’}.
*-ta'* has nothing to do with your sense of accomplishment. It has to do with whether you did something intentionally. If you did, you have the option of using either *-pu'* or *-ta'* (or *rIntaH* if the completion was particularly final). *vIghro' vIje'ta'*/I fed at the cat./ It wasn't a particularly momentous occasion, but I intentionally fed the cat and completed my feeding of the cat.
Why bother with a suffix if it doesn’t really add much to the meaning? It’s okay to omit it. I don’t have to explain to you why I omitted it. I did not make a mistake by omitting it. I would not have made a mistake by including it. It’s my choice. I can say it the way I want to say it.
Incorrect. Omitting a type 7 suffix on a verb explicitly means the action is not continuous and not perfective. It doesn't add optional meaning; if you are describing a completed action, you need a perfective suffix on it. *vIghro' vIje'* /I feed the cat./ From whatever vantage point I am describing this sentence, I am describing a non-continuous, non-completed action. For instance, a statement that, as the cat's owner, I feed the cat isn't a continuous action (I'm not doing it nonstop if I'm not Jon Arbuckle) or a completed action (I'm still the cat's owner and I still feed it). For another instance, if I'm telling a story, and in the moment described I feed the cat, then in that moment the feeding is neither continuous nor completed. *(jIvem, jItuQ'eghmoH, vIghro' vIje', puchpa' vISuch...)* But one thing that *vIghro' vIje'* cannot mean is that there was this one time I'm looking back on in which I fed a cat. For that you /must/ include perfective. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
qatlho’. You’ve done a deeper dive into the perfective than I have. Well thought-out, and thoroughly sensible. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Feb 25, 2019, at 4:30 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 2/25/2019 3:42 PM, Will Martin wrote:
Is feeding a cat really that much of an accomplishment? Is it that important to point out that you had planned feeding the cat as your goal and that you successfully reached that goal? If so, then by all means, use {-ta’}. -ta' has nothing to do with your sense of accomplishment. It has to do with whether you did something intentionally. If you did, you have the option of using either -pu' or -ta' (or rIntaH if the completion was particularly final).
vIghro' vIje'ta' I fed at the cat. It wasn't a particularly momentous occasion, but I intentionally fed the cat and completed my feeding of the cat.
Why bother with a suffix if it doesn’t really add much to the meaning? It’s okay to omit it. I don’t have to explain to you why I omitted it. I did not make a mistake by omitting it. I would not have made a mistake by including it. It’s my choice. I can say it the way I want to say it. Incorrect. Omitting a type 7 suffix on a verb explicitly means the action is not continuous and not perfective. It doesn't add optional meaning; if you are describing a completed action, you need a perfective suffix on it.
vIghro' vIje' I feed the cat. From whatever vantage point I am describing this sentence, I am describing a non-continuous, non-completed action. For instance, a statement that, as the cat's owner, I feed the cat isn't a continuous action (I'm not doing it nonstop if I'm not Jon Arbuckle) or a completed action (I'm still the cat's owner and I still feed it). For another instance, if I'm telling a story, and in the moment described I feed the cat, then in that moment the feeding is neither continuous nor completed. (jIvem, jItuQ'eghmoH, vIghro' vIje', puchpa' vISuch...)
But one thing that vIghro' vIje' cannot mean is that there was this one time I'm looking back on in which I fed a cat. For that you must include perfective.
-- 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 Feb 25, 2019, at 15:30, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
Incorrect. Omitting a type 7 suffix on a verb explicitly means the action is not continuous and not perfective. It doesn't add optional meaning; if you are describing a completed action, you need a perfective suffix on it.
I’ve seen you make this claim a number of times, but without providing a reference. Could you point out where aspect suffixes are described as non-optional? I’ve tried looking for it myself, and the closest thing I’ve found is in TKD 4.2.7 which says:
Klingon does not express tenses (past, present, future). These ideas come across from context or other words in the sentence (such as {wa'leS} <tomorrow>). The language does, however, indicate aspect: whether an action is completed or not yet completed, and whether an action is a single event or a continuing one.
The absence of a Type 7 suffix usually means that the action is not completed and is not continuous (that is, it is not one of the things indicated by the Type 7 suffixes). Verbs with no Type 7 suffix are translated by the English simple present tense.
I don’t take that to mean that a verb must necessarily take the appropriate Type 7 suffix it it happens to describe an action that is completed or continuous. The “usually” seems to leave room for the omission of Type 7 suffixes under unspecified circumstances. I also don’t think that the sentence about verbs with no Type 7 suffix being translated by the English simple present tense means that they always have to be translated that way. That could just be a description of the translating convention used in the dictionary or in the examples that immediately follow that description. It seems a bit strange to me that plural markers would be optional for things which context makes clear are definitely plural (and even for things where context leaves things ambiguous) but aspect markers would not be optional. Then again, Klingon was intentionally designed to be strange. Also, the fact that a verb can’t take an aspect marker when it takes a sentence as its object means that there are definitely cases where the absence of an aspect marker is required, even if the verb exists in a context that otherwise indicates a completed or continuous aspect. Perhaps the cases that fall outside of the “usually” in the second paragraph quoted above fall entirely within the confines of “verbs taking sentences as objects”, but it doesn’t quite add up to “aspect markers must be used for all completed or continuous actions” for me.
On 2/25/2019 5:44 PM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
On Feb 25, 2019, at 15:30, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
Incorrect. Omitting a type 7 suffix on a verb explicitly means the action is not continuous and not perfective. It doesn't add optional meaning; if you are describing a completed action, you need a perfective suffix on it. I’ve seen you make this claim a number of times, but without providing a reference. Could you point out where aspect suffixes are described as non-optional? I’ve tried looking for it myself, and the closest thing I’ve found is in TKD 4.2.7 which says:
Klingon does not express tenses (past, present, future). These ideas come across from context or other words in the sentence (such as {wa'leS} <tomorrow>). The language does, however, indicate aspect: whether an action is completed or not yet completed, and whether an action is a single event or a continuing one.
The absence of a Type 7 suffix usually means that the action is not completed and is not continuous (that is, it is not one of the things indicated by the Type 7 suffixes). Verbs with no Type 7 suffix are translated by the English simple present tense.
That's the one.
I don’t take that to mean that a verb must necessarily take the appropriate Type 7 suffix it it happens to describe an action that is completed or continuous. The “usually” seems to leave room for the omission of Type 7 suffixes under unspecified circumstances.
"Usually" allows for exceptions, such as not being allowed to put a type 7 suffix on the second verb of a sentence-as-object. And if a rule "usually" holds, then it usually holds, and is not merely optional.
I also don’t think that the sentence about verbs with no Type 7 suffix being translated by the English simple present tense means that they always have to be translated that way. That could just be a description of the translating convention used in the dictionary or in the examples that immediately follow that description.
I made no claim about having to translate verbs with English simple present. That's just a TKD convention. Okrand doesn't follow his own conventions much; he says he'll translate perfective into the English present perfect, and then half the time translates it into the simple past. There's a similar line in the section on syntax: "Any noun in the sentence indicating something other than subject or object comes first, before the object noun. Such nouns usually end in a Type 5 noun suffix..." There's that "usually" again, and no one is trying to argue that a type 5 noun suffix being "usually" on pre-object nouns makes them optional. The "usually" covers exceptions, the big one of which is time expressions. But if I were to say, "To indicate a beneficiary of an action, you put *-vaD* on the noun and put it before the object," no one doubts that the *-vaD* is required. It's not optional, even if you only "usually" need a type 5 suffix on the noun. The "usually" is just part of Okrand's usual bit about the dictionary being only a basic sketch of the language. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Feb 25, 2019, at 17:00, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote: That's the one.
Ah, okay. I was hoping maybe there was something more definitively worded on the matter somewhere else that I couldn’t find.
"Usually" allows for exceptions, such as not being allowed to put a type 7 suffix on the second verb of a sentence-as-object. And if a rule "usually" holds, then it usually holds, and is not merely optional.
Okay. It probably does, and I’ll personally consider using aspect markers when the meaning calls for them a best, most correct, practice, but I’m still not totally convinced that it’s definitely, 100% true. Just the mere fact that a verb taking a sentence as an object can’t have a type 7 suffix (but probably can have a perfective or imperfective meaning) makes me personally think that the suffix *may* not be totally needed to communicate that meaning. But it is also entirely possible that taking a sentence as object is the only case in which these suffixes may be omitted despite the meaning calling for them, or one of a very small number of other cases. Anyway, I do think the language in TKD 4.2.7 certainly suggests that using the aspect markers is a good thing to do, but I’ve seen a lot of (non-canon) usage that seems consistent with a looser, more “optional” view of the suffixes than the one you promote. I haven’t yet studied the canon sufficiently to see if the same holds true in canon. In particular, the Duolingo course seems to use verbs with no aspect markers with English translations in the simple past quite regularly, in sentences where it seems like the meaning would indicate a completed action. It does seem that at least a few people feel that the aspect markers can be left off, so I’d be interested in hearing some arguments in favor of such a view as well, if anybody has them.
I made no claim about having to translate verbs with English simple present. That's just a TKD convention.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was claiming you’ve made such a claim. I was merely saying that the language about the simple present likely referred specifically to the translating convention in the dictionary, as you’ve pointed out as well.
The "usually" is just part of Okrand's usual bit about the dictionary being only a basic sketch of the language.
Which in turn is probably because he didn’t want to pin things down in too fine detail, to leave some flexibility for future work on the language.
Damn. I lost the whole message I had written in response to this. I'll give you the slightly shorter version. On 2/25/2019 8:40 PM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
Okay. It probably does, and I’ll personally consider using aspect markers when the meaning calls for them a best, most correct, practice, but I’m still not totally convinced that it’s definitely, 100% true.
Not 100% true. Just "usually" true. True enough that you should accept it as true, and take note when Okrand himself violates it. To put it another way: if you can leave off a type 7 suffix whenever you want, what is the point of the text that says it's "usually" needed? Certainly it's not giving you a grammatical quota. ("You left off five out of your last ten aspect suffixes. Prepare to die!")
Just the mere fact that a verb taking a sentence as an object can’t have a type 7 suffix (but probably can have a perfective or imperfective meaning) makes me personally think that the suffix *may* not be totally needed to communicate that meaning. But it is also entirely possible that taking a sentence as object is the only case in which these suffixes may be omitted despite the meaning calling for them, or one of a very small number of other cases.
Another case is the rule of "never" putting a type 7 suffix on a verb with *-jaj.* (Except he has. Does that mean the rule can be ignored whenever you want? No. The rule is the rule, and there is some reason it didn't get applied to that particular sentence. Error? Figure of speech? Allowed at night on a Tuesday? We don't know.)
Anyway, I do think the language in TKD 4.2.7 certainly suggests that using the aspect markers is a good thing to do, but I’ve seen a lot of (non-canon) usage that seems consistent with a looser, more “optional” view of the suffixes than the one you promote. I haven’t yet studied the canon sufficiently to see if the same holds true in canon.
Canon nearly completely supports my interpretation. Most of what Okrand has translated has no need for perfective, being proverbs, descriptions of objects, and storytelling. When he does need perfective, it's usually for the speech of people talking about completed events or the background of people or objects, and he uses it fairly consistently. You'd be hard-pressed to find a verb that really ought to be perfective that isn't. And I'll bet most of those you do come from his earlier stuff, when he made more mistakes. There are violations of the rule: /stuffed tobaj leg/ is *to'baj 'uSHom lughoDlu'bogh,* without a needed *-pu',* but Okrand has used a lot more *-lu'pu'bogh* and *-lu'ta'bogh* phrases, and the one other time I know of when he used a *-lu'bogh* verb, in /paq'batlh, /it was describing something that wasn't complete, so it didn't need a perfective suffix.
In particular, the Duolingo course seems to use verbs with no aspect markers with English translations in the simple past quite regularly, in sentences where it seems like the meaning would indicate a completed action. It does seem that at least a few people feel that the aspect markers can be left off, so I’d be interested in hearing some arguments in favor of such a view as well, if anybody has them.
For decades members of the KLI explained Klingon perfective as meaning "happens before the time context." I know, I was one of them. Everything we translated or wrote used (or didn't use) perfective that way. The trouble is, it's wrong. "Before the time context" is tense, not aspect. When you describe /when/ something happened, instead of the /way/ it happened, that's tense. And Klingon doesn't have morphological tense. The old explanation completely failed to explain canonical phrases like *loSmaH bej jIboghpu'*/I was born forty years ago./ We had to twist ourselves into pretzels, saying, well, I wasn't born /exactly/ forty years ago, so as of forty years ago I had already been born. Which is a useless and pointless thing to say to give your age, since as of thirty-nine years ago I had also already been born, and so on. This particular phrase was the first time I doubted the traditional wisdom of the meaning of Klingon perfective, and I've been studying it ever since. As for Duolingo, it carries no especial "correctness." It was created by people on this list, indeed probably reading this message.
The "usually" is just part of Okrand's usual bit about the dictionary being only a basic sketch of the language.
Which in turn is probably because he didn’t want to pin things down in too fine detail, to leave some flexibility for future work on the language.
I don't think he expected there to be future work on the language when he wrote that. He expected the book to sit on the shelves of some Trekkies, and they might learn a few phrases. He didn't pin it down because it would have been boring to put in the book, and verisimilitude demanded he make it seem like the language wasn't well-understood anyway. So all the given rules are wibbly, but they're generally true. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Feb 25, 2019, at 20:35, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
Damn. I lost the whole message I had written in response to this. I'll give you the slightly shorter version.
HIvqa' QIn Sopchu'wI'. Thanks for taking the time to write all of that twice. It was very helpful.
if you can leave off a type 7 suffix whenever you want, what is the point of the text that says it's "usually" needed?
Splitting hairs here, but it doesn’t actually say it’s “usually needed”. It says that verbs without aspect markers are “usually … not completed and … not continuous”. It’s the leap from reading that to saying that it means that not using an aspect suffix when a verb describes a completed or continuous action is wrong (or “usually” wrong) that I’m struggling with. I think part of my resistance to fully embracing aspect markers as non-optional (don’t get me wrong, I do think you’re likely right that they’re not optional) comes from my own personal philosophical attraction to the idea of Klingon generally communicating the needed information, and not more and not less. My own take on aspect markers had been similar to what charghwI' was describing: that the suffixes could be omitted if it wasn’t important for the purposes of the particular utterance at hand to indicate aspect. Clipped Klingon certainly makes even verb prefixes optional, so I’d imagine that at least Clipped Klingon would be another exception to the “usually”.
As for Duolingo, it carries no especial "correctness."
Sure, I meant only to highlight the Duolingo course as an example of a place where I frequently encountered verbs without aspect markers that indicated completed actions. Didn’t mean to imply that the usage on Duolingo was evidence of that usage being correct, or that Duolingo was incorrect for using verbs that way. Your information on the interpretation of aspect changing over the years was enlightening; I think that more than anything explains the spectrum of different ways I’ve seen people using the aspect markers.
On 2/25/2019 10:55 PM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
I think part of my resistance to fully embracing aspect markers as non-optional (don’t get me wrong, I do think you’re likely right that they’re not optional) comes from my own personal philosophical attraction to the idea of Klingon generally communicating the needed information, and not more and not less. My own take on aspect markers had been similar to what charghwI' was describing: that the suffixes could be omitted if it wasn’t important for the purposes of the particular utterance at hand to indicate aspect. Clipped Klingon certainly makes even verb prefixes optional, so I’d imagine that at least Clipped Klingon would be another exception to the “usually”.
De'vID gives a better answer to this than I could have; I'll let it stand for most of my answer here. As for Klingon not communicating more or less than the required information, that's just not true. Klingon has known redundancies — using explicit plural suffixes when verb prefixes make them inevitable; using *-Daq* on a the object of a verb with a locative meaning; words like *HIja'/HISlaH, joH/jaw, qIt/DuH* with apparently identical meaning; saying *HIja'/ghobe'* as well as repeating the question as a statement (CK). Clipped Klingon never seems to omit any suffixes, except *-'e'* at the end of a copula. It has optional figures of speech, like using *rIntaH* to indicate *-ta'* with a sense of finality. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Mon, 25 Feb 2019 at 23:45, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
On Feb 25, 2019, at 15:30, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
Incorrect. Omitting a type 7 suffix on a verb explicitly means the action is not continuous and not perfective. It doesn't add optional meaning; if you are describing a completed action, you need a perfective suffix on it.
I’ve seen you make this claim a number of times, but without providing a reference. Could you point out where aspect suffixes are described as non-optional? I’ve tried looking for it myself, and the closest thing I’ve found is in TKD 4.2.7 which says:
Klingon does not express tenses (past, present, future). These ideas come across from context or other words in the sentence (such as {wa'leS} <tomorrow>). The language does, however, indicate aspect: whether an action is completed or not yet completed, and whether an action is a single event or a continuing one.
The absence of a Type 7 suffix usually means that the action is not completed and is not continuous (that is, it is not one of the things indicated by the Type 7 suffixes). Verbs with no Type 7 suffix are translated by the English simple present tense.
I don’t take that to mean that a verb must necessarily take the appropriate Type 7 suffix it it happens to describe an action that is completed or continuous. The “usually” seems to leave room for the omission of Type 7 suffixes under unspecified circumstances.
It's interesting that aspect and tense are things that languages can have, but some languages have one and not the other, because they're handled in similar ways in natural languages. Imagine the analogous situation where I told you that the absence of something indicating past or future tense usually means that the verb is in the present tense. This is a (very simplified) version of how English and most Indo-European languages work. There *are* situations where a verb is in the present tense but describes an action in the past or future, such as if you're telling a story where the narrative tense is present but it actually takes place in the past (or future), but these are special cases. The word "usually" indicates that something is a rule, but that there are (i.e., "unusual") exceptions.
I also don’t think that the sentence about verbs with no Type 7 suffix being translated by the English simple present tense means that they always have to be translated that way. That could just be a description of the translating convention used in the dictionary or in the examples that immediately follow that description.
As someone who natively speaks one language with tense and not aspect (English) and another with aspect and not tense (Cantonese Chinese), I'll say that the fact that each language requires the expression of something that the other doesn't just means that something has to get dropped when going from one to the other. It does *not* mean that the thing that's frequently dropped in translation is *optional* in the original language. One common stereotype Americans have of (typically older) Chinese people speaking English is that they drop tense, so they would say things like "I go [instead of went] store yesterday". The stereotype also exists in the other direction: Chinese people think Americans and other native English speakers learning Chinese drop aspect, so they say things like "I go [instead of go-completed] store yesterday". I don't know how much experience you've had teaching English to Chinese speakers (or vice versa), but it genuinely is difficult to convince people not to forget to include the thing that normally isn't included in their native language. I mean, how important can tense be if it's *never* expressed in my own language? And yet, if you drop tense in English, it just sounds wrong to someone who speaks the language. I see something similar happening with Klingon where people try to convince themselves that the rules doesn't actually say what it says, because it goes against their *English*-based intuition of what needs to be expressed in a sentence. People claim that it's okay to omit aspect markers if what they indicate isn't "important". But what's important in a language isn't entirely subjective, but rather governed by the rules of the language itself. Objectively, tense isn't important in English. There have been proposals for a reformed simplified English which drop all sorts of things like tense. And clearly, since other natural languages don't express tense, English doesn't need to, either. And yet "usually" when you omit tense when a verb should actually be in past or future tense, it's just wrong.
It seems a bit strange to me that plural markers would be optional for things which context makes clear are definitely plural (and even for things where context leaves things ambiguous) but aspect markers would not be optional.
But there's a logical difference between them. Plural markers are optional because you can otherwise be unambiguous, either by using prefixes, or when that is insufficient, by using a number such as {wa'}. The plural indicators in Klingon are exhaustive: things are either singular or plural (there are no nulls, or duals, or other, as some languages have). The Klingon aspect system uses the absence of aspect markers to indicate a particular range of aspect (namely, actions which are neither completed nor continuous), so the aspect markers are *not* exhaustive. If aspect markers were optional when the action is completed or continuous, it would leave the language with no way to unambiguously specify an action that is neither. It would be like if English were to treat the absence of tense as optionally indicating future or past: it would leave the language no way to unambiguously express present tense. (If aspect markers were optional in Klingon, then it would need an explicit aspect marker for "not completed and not continuous".)
Then again, Klingon was intentionally designed to be strange.
While Klingon is strangely put together, most parts of it taken in isolation actually exist in natural Terran languages. The way it handles aspect is consistent with how it's done in natural languages like Chinese (which has many more aspects than Klingon expresses).
Also, the fact that a verb can’t take an aspect marker when it takes a sentence as its object means that there are definitely cases where the absence of an aspect marker is required, even if the verb exists in a context that otherwise indicates a completed or continuous aspect. Perhaps the cases that fall outside of the “usually” in the second paragraph quoted above fall entirely within the confines of “verbs taking sentences as objects”, but it doesn’t quite add up to “aspect markers must be used for all completed or continuous actions” for me.
The sentence used to introduce this restriction in TKD is: {yaS qIppu' 'e' vIlegh}. This sentence didn't appear in Star Trek III, but was something with this grammar actually spoken in the movie which forced Okrand to make this restriction? Otherwise, I think the restriction was put in place to prevent contradictory aspects between the two sentences in a SAO construction. There are other ways of doing that, but outright banning aspect on the second sentence accomplishes that goal (even if it's kind of overkill). In Chinese, when you have the analogous thing to a SAO construction, certain combinations of aspect markers become impossible. Maybe Okrand just wanted to keep things simpler in Klingon by banning them outright instead of specifying the legal combinations, but he apparently forgot the rule himself while writing the text for the SkyBox cards: {juHqo'Daq vaS'a' tu'lu'. ngoch luchermeH 'ej wo' San luwuqmeH pa' ghom tlhIngan yejquv DevwI'pu'. DaH che' ghawran. yejquv DevwI' moj ghawran 'e' wuqta' cho' 'oDwI' Dapu'bogh janluq pIqarD HoD.} "On the Homeworld, there is a great hall where the leaders of the Klingon High Council meet to determine policy and decide upon the fate of the Empire. Gowron currently presides, named leader of the High Council by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who was acting as Arbiter of Succession." (SkyBox card #25) {moj 'e' wuqta'} contradicts the rule stated in TKD 6.2.5. {DuraS tuq tlhIngan yejquv patlh luDub 'e' reH lunIDtaH DuraS be'nI'pu' lurSa' be'etor je. ngoQvam luchavmeH ghawran maghpu' be'nI'pu'. woQ luSuqmeH jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e' je.} "The sisters of the House of Duras, Lursa and B'Etor, are constantly seeking a higher standing for the House of Duras within the Klingon High Council. To this end, the sisters have acted against Gowron, going as far as to work with Romulan factions in order to gain power." (SkyBox card #26) Same for {luDub 'e' lunIDtaH}. -- De'vID
Am 26.02.2019 um 10:35 schrieb De'vID:> cases. The word "usually" indicates that something is a rule, but that
there are (i.e., "unusual") exceptions.
We should all remember the phrase from the introduction of TKD: "It should be remembered that even though the rules say "always" and "never," when Klingon is actually spoken these rules are sometimes broken. "
The sentence used to introduce this restriction in TKD is: {yaS qIppu' 'e' vIlegh}.
This sentence didn't appear in Star Trek III, but was something with this grammar actually spoken in the movie which forced Okrand to make this restriction?
Yes: {qama'pu' jonta' neH} In the first version, it was meant to say "I told you: only the engine". The new subtitles of the movie changed to "I wanted to take prisoners". Okrand had to backfit the sentence structure, but the suffix {-ta'} was on the first verb instead of the second one. So, the rule was set: the second verb does not take the aspect suffix. NB: this is not confirmed, but I think it's obvious. -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/ST3
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 11:32, Lieven L. Litaer <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
Am 26.02.2019 um 10:35 schrieb De'vID:>
The sentence used to introduce this restriction in TKD is: {yaS qIppu' 'e' vIlegh}.
This sentence didn't appear in Star Trek III, but was something with this grammar actually spoken in the movie which forced Okrand to make this restriction?
Yes: {qama'pu' jonta' neH}
In the first version, it was meant to say "I told you: only the engine". The new subtitles of the movie changed to "I wanted to take prisoners". Okrand had to backfit the sentence structure, but the suffix {-ta'} was on the first verb instead of the second one. So, the rule was set: the second verb does not take the aspect suffix.
NB: this is not confirmed, but I think it's obvious.
Oh, of course, the one sentence that literally explains most of the weird arbitrary decisions made in TKD. Why wasn't it the first thing I thought of? -- De'vID
On Feb 26, 2019, at 04:48, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 11:32, Lieven L. Litaer <levinius@gmx.de> wrote: Am 26.02.2019 um 10:35 schrieb De'vID:>
The sentence used to introduce this restriction in TKD is: {yaS qIppu' 'e' vIlegh}.
This sentence didn't appear in Star Trek III, but was something with this grammar actually spoken in the movie which forced Okrand to make this restriction?
Yes: {qama'pu' jonta' neH}
Oh, of course, the one sentence that literally explains most of the weird arbitrary decisions made in TKD.
If that turns out to be true (that {qama'pu' jonta' neH} gave us not only Clipped Klingon, {-pu'} as a plural marker for beings capable of speech, {-ta'} as an aspect marker for completed intentional actions, {neH} as a verb, and the special rule that {neH} doesn’t use the pronoun {'e'} when taking a sentence as its object, but *also* the rule forbidding aspect markers on a verb that takes a sentence as its object), then that, more than anything, convinces me that the aspect markers truly are non-optional. The sentence is already clearly clipped Klingon (the verbs should have been {vIjonta'} or maybe {DIjonta'} and {vIneH} otherwise), and Okrand could have very easily explained the missing {'e'} and {-pu'} away as being because the sentence was already clipped, but he chose not to do so. {qama'pu' jonta' neH} really is the gift that keeps on giving… As for the rule resolving possible conflicts in aspect between a verb and its object sentence, perhaps that’s the reason, but I don’t see why the aspect of a verb taking an SAO and the verb in its SAO have to agree in the first place. If I say (ungrammatically) {wa'leS SIStaH 'e' vI'aqpu'} “I have predicted that it will be continuously raining tomorrow”, in both Klingon and English the prediction is completed and the raining is continuous, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason grounded in laws of nature why the aspect of these two verbs must agree. Even with {qama'pu' (vI)jonta' (vI)neH}, there’s no reason the wanting has to be completed. {Qugh HoD} could still not-completed-want to capture prisoners, even if the opportunity to do so is apparently no longer available. If I have to just say {wa'leS SIStaH 'e' vI'aq} or {wa'leS SIS 'e' vI'aq} instead, since verbs taking SAO can’t also have a VS7, then the information that {'aq} is completed has been lost, and if it can be lost here, why not somewhere else? Certainly, the aspect of the verb taking the SAO doesn’t come from the verb in the SAO, since {wa'leS SISpu' 'e' vI'aq} sounds like the prediction is that it will stop raining tomorrow, when what I really want to say is that I finished predicting that it will rain tomorrow. (I’m now fairly convinced that you do indeed need to use aspect markers when the meaning calls for them, so I’m not holding this up as an argument to say they you don’t; I’m just trying to understand the ramifications of this restriction more fully.) As somebody who is familiar, to varying levels of proficiency, with languages that indicate aspect but not tense, tense but not aspect, and both tense and aspect, I’m aware that dropping aspect markers when they would otherwise be indicated, in languages that mark aspect, produces speech that seems as off as “I go to the store” (when I in fact went to the store) does in English, but just because that’s true for other languages that mark aspect that I’m familiar with, I didn’t take that to mean that it’s necessarily true for Klingon as well. I do make an effort not to allow my intuitions from other languages creep into my understanding of new languages I learn, although to a certain extent it’s unavoidable, I suppose. It’s hard to say for sure, but I think my personal impression of the aspect markers being mostly optional was mainly informed by being exposed to usage of non-aspect-marked verbs to indicate what appeared to be completed actions (problably mostly from Duolingo) early on when studying the language, which fed into and reinforced my (erroneous, as SuStel points out) view of Klingon as communicating “no more, no less” than necessary.
On Feb 26, 2019, at 08:20, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
{qama'pu' jonta' neH} gave us not only Clipped Klingon, {-pu'} as a plural marker for beings capable of speech, {-ta'} as an aspect marker for completed intentional actions, {neH} as a verb, and the special rule that {neH} doesn’t use the pronoun {'e'} when taking a sentence as its object, but *also* the rule forbidding aspect markers on a verb that takes a sentence as its object
I forgot to include “the meaning of the verb {ma'}” to this already very long list. I imagine that {ma'} was originally meant to mean something like {ja'} does now, and wonder whether we wouldn’t have the similarity between {jatlh}, {ja'}, {jat}, and {jach} if he weren’t forced to change {ma'} to mean something else, to make the backfit less obvious. Clearly, hiding backfits became harder to do over the years, as evidenced by {vaj toDuj Daj ngeHbej DI vI'} and all of Star Trek: Into Darkness.
On 2/26/2019 9:31 AM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
On Feb 26, 2019, at 08:20, Daniel Dadap<daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
{qama'pu' jonta' neH} gave us not only Clipped Klingon, {-pu'} as a plural marker for beings capable of speech, {-ta'} as an aspect marker for completed intentional actions, {neH} as a verb, and the special rule that {neH} doesn’t use the pronoun {'e'} when taking a sentence as its object, but*also* the rule forbidding aspect markers on a verb that takes a sentence as its object I forgot to include “the meaning of the verb {ma'}” to this already very long list. I imagine that {ma'} was originally meant to mean something like {ja'} does now, and wonder whether we wouldn’t have the similarity between {jatlh}, {ja'}, {jat}, and {jach} if he weren’t forced to change {ma'} to mean something else, to make the backfit less obvious.
*-pu'* was originally a past-tense marker, and *ma'* meant what *ja'* means now. *ma'* means /accommodate/ because Okrand had to accommodate the script-change with all this new stuff. Klingon switched to aspect instead of tense because it made no sense to have past tense on the new verb *jon, *no matter what the suffix. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Am 26.02.2019 um 15:31 schrieb Daniel Dadap:
Clearly, hiding backfits became harder to do over the years, as evidenced by {vaj toDuj Daj ngeHbej DI vI'} and all of Star Trek: Into Darkness.
See a collection of those at the Klingon Wiki: http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/UnintentionalVocabulary -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de
SuStel:
Okrand has stated that he regrets making
-laH and -lu' mutually incompatible.
Interesting.. However, couldn't he change this rule even now ? Couldn't maltz say something like "research into the dialect (dialect name goes here), revealed that in this dialect -lu' and -laH can indeed coexist" ? ~ the goat
Am 26.02.2019 um 19:34 schrieb mayqel qunen'oS:
Interesting.. However, couldn't he change this rule even now ?
Okrand has never changed any rule, but sometimes made additions.
Couldn't maltz say something like "research into the dialect (dialect name goes here), revealed that in this dialect -lu' and -laH can indeed coexist" ?
He did in KGT, somehow, in the chapter "Intentional ungrammaticality": "some speakers seem to want to put the two concepts into a single word, and, on rare occasion, they will do so. Rather than violating the rules by using the two suffixes sequentially (that is, {-lu’laH} or {-laHlu’}), however, these speakers will say either {-luH} or {-la’}" -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/IntentionalUngrammaticality
On 2/26/2019 9:20 AM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
If I have to just say {wa'leS SIStaH 'e' vI'aq} or {wa'leS SIS 'e' vI'aq} instead, since verbs taking SAO can’t also have a VS7, then the information that {'aq} is completed has been lost, and if it can be lost here, why not somewhere else? Certainly, the aspect of the verb taking the SAO doesn’t come from the verb in the SAO, since {wa'leS SISpu' 'e' vI'aq} sounds like the prediction is that it will stop raining tomorrow, when what I really want to say is that I finished predicting that it will rain tomorrow. (I’m now fairly convinced that you do indeed need to use aspect markers when the meaning calls for them, so I’m not holding this up as an argument to say they you don’t; I’m just trying to understand the ramifications of this restriction more fully.)
It's true that sometimes the arbitrary limitations of the grammar mean that sometimes you have to find other ways to say what you want, when violating the rule would give you exactly what you want. I can't tell you how many times a thorny problem would have been solved by being able to put *-ghach* on a verb with no suffixes, or being able to put something other than noun phrases in the comparative construction, or being able to use *-laH* and *-lu'* at the same time without slang, or, in this case, being able to specify aspect on the second verb of a sentence-as-object. You just have to look elsewhere. Okrand has stated that he regrets making *-laH* and *-lu'* mutually incompatible. The solution is illustrated by his translations of /Kahless the Unforgettable:**/*qeylIS lIjlaHbe'bogh vay'; qeylIS lIjlaHbogh pagh.* This is how you have to get around these limitations. You can't say *wa'leS SIStaH 'e' vI'aqpu',* but you can say *wa'leS SIStaH; muD Dotlhvetlh vI'aqpu'.* It's awkward, but it's awkward because you're insisting on focusing on the completion of the prediction. I get the feeling, from Okrand's translations as well as the text in TKD, that the second sentence of a sentence-as-object is supposed to be a fairly lightweight thing, not meant to carry the bulk of the meaning: "[*'e'* and *net*] are used primarily, though not exclusively, with verbs of thinking or observation (such as /know, see/)." When we go far afield from that, we strain the ability of the language to deliver the intended meaning. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 15:47, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
I get the feeling, from Okrand's translations as well as the text in TKD, that the second sentence of a sentence-as-object is supposed to be a fairly lightweight thing, not meant to carry the bulk of the meaning: "[*'e'* and *net*] are used primarily, though not exclusively, with verbs of thinking or observation (such as *know, see*)." When we go far afield from that, we strain the ability of the language to deliver the intended meaning.
I also get the feeling that {'e'} is overused (though {net} is perhaps underused). Often, when I see a sentence on this mailing list written with {'e'}, I think that Okrand would've written it as two grammatically unconnected sentences. -- De'vID
[was Re: [tlhIngan Hol] Using -ta' during -taHvIS] De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> schrieb am Mi., 27. Feb. 2019, 18:25:
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 15:47, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
I get the feeling, from Okrand's translations as well as the text in TKD, that the second sentence of a sentence-as-object is supposed to be a fairly lightweight thing, not meant to carry the bulk of the meaning: "[*'e'* and *net*] are used primarily, though not exclusively, with verbs of thinking or observation (such as *know, see*)." When we go far afield from that, we strain the ability of the language to deliver the intended meaning.
I also get the feeling that {'e'} is overused (though {net} is perhaps underused). Often, when I see a sentence on this mailing list written with {'e'}, I think that Okrand would've written it as two grammatically unconnected sentences.
This is something that Okrand does frequently enough, and which other people writing Klingon (almost) never do, that I think it's worth pointing out. Maybe we should be following Okrand's example and writing pairs of sentences with fewer {'ej}s and {'e'} between them, and just let the context indicate that the sentences are "connected".
From Power Klingon: {'uSDaj chop! chev!} "Bite his/her leg off!" {targhlIj yIngagh! yIruch!} "Go mate with your targ!"
The first is a pet command, and is obviously clipped. But still, it doesn't seem like anything was dropped which would've grammatically connected {chev} to {chop}. I think if one of us had been asked to translate "bite someone's leg off", we'd have likely gone with {'uSDaj chevmeH chop} or something like that. As for the second sentence, again, based on the Klingon sentences written on this mailing list, I think most people would've written {targhlIj Dangagh 'e' yIruch!} Okrand has said in interviews that often, when he's asked to translate something, the number of sentences in the Klingon translation doesn't match the number in the English. A good example of this is the last line of the anthem: "We battle forever, battling on through the Eternal fight." {reH maSuvtaHqu'. mamevQo'. maSuvtaH. ma'ov.} Another example, from Star Trek V: {yISo'Ha'rup, yIghuS.} "Stand by to de-cloak for firing." Again, this could've been {bIghuSmeH yISo'Ha'rup!} but it's two separate sentences instead. Recently, there was this: {chorgh 'uj(mey) lID SuvwI'; ron} "the warrior rolled (haphazardly) for eight ujes" Again, there's no {lIDmeH} or {rontaHvIS}. It's just {lID}, {ron}. This one was my example, but it's based on Okrand's description of how {lol} and {much} work together and he approved it: {lol SuvwI'; mI'loD much} There's also this, which is joined with {'ej}: {qaS qepHom 'ej jIjeS.} I bring up this example because, for many years, people on the mailing list tried to put the event as the object of {jeS} (as in *{qepHom vIjeS}) or marked it with {-vaD} (like *{qepHomvaD jIjeS}). But it turns out that you can just state that something is happening, and that you participate, and the context is what determines that you're participating in the thing that's happening. I think you should also be able to just say {qaS qepHom; jIjeS} and be understood. (You could also say {qaStaHvIS qepHom jIjeS}, which has a slightly different emphasis. But my point is that the second sentence/verb doesn't necessarily have to explicitly refer to the object or topic of the first, or even be grammatically joined to it.) I think that very often, people use {'e'} or {-meH} or {-taHvIS} to join Klingon sentences into one which would be expressed using a single sentence in English, but there's no reason the Klingon translation doesn't just use multiple grammatically independent sentences. -- De'vID
On 3/6/2019 4:29 AM, De'vID wrote:
I think that very often, people use {'e'} or {-meH} or {-taHvIS} to join Klingon sentences into one which would be expressed using a single sentence in English, but there's no reason the Klingon translation doesn't just use multiple grammatically independent sentences.
I agree completely with this message. Not only does it avoid grammatical issues, not only does it appear in canon a lot, but it's also a style that Okrand has told us is true about Klingon. I warn the reader, however, to avoid a plodding pace. Too many short sentences, especially where a longer sentence would be an elegant or expressive one, is really boring to read. Okrand doesn't say* * *'uSDaj chop.* *chev.* His tone says *'uSDaj chop; chev.* The separate sentences form a complete idea when placed together. Don't string together unrelated ideas because you think you're supposed to shove short sentences together. The idea here is that grammatical independence does not necessarily equal a complete idea. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Actually, Clipped Klingon was invented to explain the entire spoken Klingon and subtitles in ST1, which were done before Okrand was hired to invent the Vulcan ceremony in ST2. He invented the Klingon language for ST3, making sure that ST1 would still count as accurate spoken Klingon. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Feb 26, 2019, at 9:20 AM, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
This sentence didn't appear in Star Trek III, but was something with this grammar actually spoken in the movie which forced Okrand to make this restriction?
Yes: {qama'pu' jonta' neH}
Oh, of course, the one sentence that literally explains most of the weird arbitrary decisions made in TKD.
If that turns out to be true (that {qama'pu' jonta' neH} gave us not only Clipped Klingon,
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 15:20, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
As for the rule resolving possible conflicts in aspect between a verb and its object sentence, perhaps that’s the reason, but I don’t see why the aspect of a verb taking an SAO and the verb in its SAO have to agree in the first place.
What do you mean by "agree"? They don't have to be the same (which you seem to imply), but they can't be incompatible. In the Chinese equivalent of the SAO construction, aspect on one verb affects how the other verb is interpreted and what aspect it can take. For example, if I say "I watch [continuous] him eat [no aspect]", then (usually) his eating is continuous despite the lack of aspect on that verb. And you can't say "I watch [continuous] him eat [completed]". I was thinking that Okrand didn't want to have to deal with the complexity of this sort of thing when he ruled out having aspect markers on both verbs. But it seems that he was actually backed into it by having to backfit a movie line, and maybe didn't think it through. There's no reason why {moj 'e' wuqta'} (Picard intentionally performed the action of deciding that Gowron should, as a matter of fact, become Chancellor) or {luDub 'e' lunIDtaH} (the Duras sisters continually try to improve, in general, their position) should be impossible, and he evidently forgot that he had ruled them out.
If I say (ungrammatically) {wa'leS SIStaH 'e' vI'aqpu'} “I have predicted that it will be continuously raining tomorrow”, in both Klingon and English the prediction is completed and the raining is continuous, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason grounded in laws of nature why the aspect of these two verbs must agree.
You seem to be using "agree" here to mean "be identical", when performing a completed action on a continuous one is a *compatible* set of aspects.
Even with {qama'pu' (vI)jonta' (vI)neH}, there’s no reason the wanting has to be completed. {Qugh HoD} could still not-completed-want to capture prisoners, even if the opportunity to do so is apparently no longer available.
Here's how it would work in Chinese (if Chinese were simplified to have the same set of aspect markers as Klingon): "I see [no aspect] him hit [completed] the officer" = I witnessed a crime (a specific event that happened) "I see [completed] him hit the officer [no aspect]" = I witnessed a trend (he's a guy who hits the officer, generally speaking) "I want [no aspect] to capture [completed] prisoners" = I want(ed) to capture prisoners (there was a specific instance of prisoner-capture that I want or wanted to happen) "I want [completed] to capture [no aspect] prisoners" = I used to want to capture prisoners (in general, maybe as a habit or occupation), but maybe no longer do The natural way to express the second of the pairs is apparently illegal in Klingon. In {qama'pu' vIjonta' vIneH}, though, I don't think the act of wanting is necessarily completed, but the specific instance of prisoner-capture is over, and that affects what the wanting means in the context in which that sentence (or a clipped version of it) was spoken. If I say {yaS qIppu' 'e' vIlegh}, nothing in the *grammar* says that {vIlegh} can't mean "I will see [in the future] that...", but the hitting of the officer is an event that's over (presumably), so I saw it. In another context, maybe I really could mean something like "I will see him hit [completed] the officer in the future", if I'm making a prediction. Similarly, Kruge was saying he wanted to capture prisoners because that opportunity was lost. Outside of that specific scene in Star Trek III, if he had said {qama'pu' vIjonta' vIneH}, he *might* be saying that he generally wants to have captured prisoners. The explanation in TKD doesn't go into all the possibilities that sentence could mean in all contexts. It's just trying to keep things simple. -- De'vID
On Feb 26, 2019, at 21:19, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 15:20, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote: As for the rule resolving possible conflicts in aspect between a verb and its object sentence, perhaps that’s the reason, but I don’t see why the aspect of a verb taking an SAO and the verb in its SAO have to agree in the first place.
What do you mean by "agree"? They don't have to be the same (which you seem to imply), but they can't be incompatible.
Okay. Yes, “the aspects should be the same” is what I thought you meant when you were talking about preventing contradictory aspects, which didn’t seem like something that needed preventing to me, hence the examples. Apologies for the misunderstanding. Thanks for the Skybox counter-examples of the “no aspect marker on verb taking SAO” rule. I’m constantly saying things like {(qaS vay') 'e' vIHar'pu'} to mean that I *had* believed that whatever the {(qaS vay')} placeholder represents was true, but that believing is completed after some new information caused me to no longer believe it. Then I remember that I’m not allowed to say {'e' vIHarpu'}. Of course, those counter-examples aren’t license to violate the rule given in TKD, but at least I won’t feel quite so bad about the occasional inevitable slip-ups when I say I {vIHarpu'} some sentence.
Just to add the historical background, this rule (no Type 7 suffix on second verb of SAO) exists because of a subtitle for a spoken Klingon line that Okrand clearly would have preferred to have put a perfective suffix on the second verb, but his hand was forced. The scene had been shot and they weren’t going to do it over again to fix the line, so he created this grammar rule in order to explain why that second verb didn’t have {-pu’} on it. We all hate the rule. In terms of the grammar being internally consistent and making sense and offering the most broad expressive capability, this rule stinks enough that even Okrand breaks it from time to time. I personally think it’s forgivable to let those exceptions in canon trump the rule, making it obsolete, so we can say, “Yeah, that’s an old grammar rule that people often ignore,” like the way in English, as years pass, people never use “whom”, but instead use “who” for either subject or object. Yes, the English rule definitely still exists, and you really should say, “To whom are you speaking?” instead of “Who are you speaking to?”, but if somebody says the latter, everybody understands them, and most of the time, to be polite, you don’t even point out the technical error(s). It’s good to have the rule to explain the past, but I don’t think anybody should feel TOO attached to the rule for the future. If you want to speak “proper” Klingon, follow the rule, just like you should avoid using the very useful verb suffix {-luH} if you want to speak proper Klingon, but if you just want to say something in Klingon that everyone will understand clearly, and you are not trying to impress anyone with your fastidiously proper grammar, go ahead an put a Type 7 on the second verb of SAO and use {-luH}. It’s like the English word “ain’t”. We know it’s not proper, but it works, and EVERYBODY knows HOW it works. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Feb 27, 2019, at 12:34 AM, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
On Feb 26, 2019, at 21:19, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com <mailto:de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 15:20, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net <mailto:daniel@dadap.net>> wrote: As for the rule resolving possible conflicts in aspect between a verb and its object sentence, perhaps that’s the reason, but I don’t see why the aspect of a verb taking an SAO and the verb in its SAO have to agree in the first place.
What do you mean by "agree"? They don't have to be the same (which you seem to imply), but they can't be incompatible.
Okay. Yes, “the aspects should be the same” is what I thought you meant when you were talking about preventing contradictory aspects, which didn’t seem like something that needed preventing to me, hence the examples. Apologies for the misunderstanding.
Thanks for the Skybox counter-examples of the “no aspect marker on verb taking SAO” rule. I’m constantly saying things like {(qaS vay') 'e' vIHar'pu'} to mean that I *had* believed that whatever the {(qaS vay')} placeholder represents was true, but that believing is completed after some new information caused me to no longer believe it. Then I remember that I’m not allowed to say {'e' vIHarpu'}. Of course, those counter-examples aren’t license to violate the rule given in TKD, but at least I won’t feel quite so bad about the occasional inevitable slip-ups when I say I {vIHarpu'} some sentence. _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 2/27/2019 10:46 AM, Will Martin wrote:
We all hate the rule.
Speak for yourself, not others. I don't hate the rule; I think it adds character to the language.
In terms of the grammar being internally consistent and making sense and offering the most broad expressive capability, this rule stinks enough that even Okrand breaks it from time to time. I personally think it’s forgivable to let those exceptions in canon trump the rule, making it obsolete, so we can say, “Yeah, that’s an old grammar rule that people often ignore,” like the way in English, as years pass, people never use “whom”, but instead use “who” for either subject or object.
Don't speak for Klingons, either. You don't know that this is the Klingon equivalent of /whom./ You can't go declaring that it's disappearing from Klingon because you don't like it. Okrand has given us some indication of language change in /KGT,/ and perfective on the second verb is not one of the things he says is happening.
Yes, the English rule definitely still exists, and you really should say, “To whom are you speaking?” instead of “Who are you speaking to?”, but if somebody says the latter, everybody understands them, and most of the time, to be polite, you don’t even point out the technical error(s).
You're being a prescriptivist. You're declaring a rule imposed on a language by some entity. The fiction of Klingon is that it's a real language and that Okrand is our conduit through which we learn how it works. In that fiction, TKD and KGT are descriptions of how Klingon is actually spoken, not prescriptions for the language, and not style guides. English /whom/ is disappearing from the language. It is so far removed from the language that it's perfectly acceptable in many circumstances not to use it. That's not a violation; that's the language. There was a short-lived sequel series to /Babylon 5/ called /Crusade./ The opening sequence of this show drove me mad, because it twice had a character asking in melodramatic tones, "Who do you serve, and who do you trust?" /WHOM! It's WHOM, you stupid show!/ But there we are.
It’s good to have the rule to explain the past, but I don’t think anybody should feel TOO attached to the rule for the future.
Please cite the canonical evidence that shows that this rule is disappearing from the language.
It’s like the English word “ain’t”. We know it’s not proper, but it works, and EVERYBODY knows HOW it works.
/Ain't/ is completely proper in the correct dialects. A style guide may tell you not to use it, but that doesn't make it wrong. There are circumstances where, if you said /isn't/ instead of /ain't,/ you'd actually be wrong to do so. Take, for instance, the famous phrase "Ain't nobody got time for that." In the dialect spoken by Sweet Brown, that is a completely acceptable and proper sentence. She could not have said "Nobody has time for that" in her dialect; it would mark her as not belonging. Her dialect, and many others like it, have known rules that are as grammatically consistent as Standard American English. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 at 17:40, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 2/27/2019 10:46 AM, Will Martin wrote:
We all hate the rule.
Speak for yourself, not others. I don't hate the rule; I think it adds character to the language.
I don't "hate" the rule either. I just often forget it's there.
Don't speak for Klingons, either. You don't know that this is the Klingon equivalent of *whom.* You can't go declaring that it's disappearing from Klingon because you don't like it. Okrand has given us some indication of language change in *KGT,* and perfective on the second verb is not one of the things he says is happening.
The fiction that we agree to is that Okrand is describing Klingon as spoken. But it's actually spoken over a period of centuries on the shows, all the way from just before the TOS era (in Enterprise and Discovery) to the end of the TNG era. TKD describes Klingon as allegedly related by Maltz, and it says that you can't have an aspect suffix on the second verb in a SAO construction. The two SkyBox cards are about the TNG era. Within our fiction, who wrote those cards, and in whose Klingon (and what time period's) were they written? It could conceivably be the case that the rule has changed or relaxed by the time of TNG, which is why {moj 'e' wuqta'} and {luDub 'e' lunIDtaH} are allowed. Or maybe it's allowed in Gowron's dialect, and not in Kruge's, and became illegal again after Gowron was deposed by Worf. Of course, we don't know, so nobody should go around declaring that this is so. But Okrand's hints about language change and his invention of dialects has given us (actually, him) a lot of leeway to excuse inconsistencies. (In-universe Okrand must be a time-traveler, because not only is he an active linguist all the way from the TOS through the TNG era, but he's somehow also made communication with Maltz possible in the late 20th/early 21st century.) -- De'vID
On Feb 27, 2019, at 11:40, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 at 17:40, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 2/27/2019 10:46 AM, Will Martin wrote: We all hate the rule. Speak for yourself, not others. I don't hate the rule; I think it adds character to the language.
I don't "hate" the rule either. I just often forget it's there.
Same here. Klingon is a quirky language, and this is one of its quirks. I break the rule often because I forget about it, and the meaning when it’s broken is obviously clear, but I harbor no ill will towards it.
(In-universe Okrand must be a time-traveler, because not only is he an active linguist all the way from the TOS through the TNG era, but he's somehow also made communication with Maltz possible in the late 20th/early 21st century.)
Maybe we need to revise the “Maltz lives in Okrand’s basement” thing to “Maltz is a hologram from the future in Okrand’s basement”?
participants (7)
-
Daniel Dadap -
De'vID -
Jeffrey Clark -
Lieven L. Litaer -
mayqel qunen'oS -
SuStel -
Will Martin