I was reading the Klingon wiki's page on conjunctions today, and read about the seven (eight if you count *'a'* and *'ach* separately) conjunctions of Klingon, and how other conjunctions are expressed by suffixes. That got me wondering: How is the concept of "whether" expressed in Klingon? How would one say, for instance, "I don't know whether Mike stole my pie"?
This is a question regarding "indirect questions" and whether you can use question-as-object format for things like this. Personally, I like it, but I'm distinctly in the minority here. People tend to rephrase, though not clear how easy it is to rephrase when the question is a truth-value so you can't say "yIngu'". ~mark On 6/10/24 17:19, James Landau via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:
I was reading the Klingon wiki's page on conjunctions today, and read about the seven (eight if you count *'a'* and *'ach* separately) conjunctions of Klingon, and how other conjunctions are expressed by suffixes.
That got me wondering: How is the concept of "whether" expressed in Klingon? How would one say, for instance, "I don't know whether Mike stole my pie"?
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On 6/10/2024 5:19 PM, James Landau via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:
I was reading the Klingon wiki's page on conjunctions today, and read about the seven (eight if you count *'a'* and *'ach* separately) conjunctions of Klingon, and how other conjunctions are expressed by suffixes.
That got me wondering: How is the concept of "whether" expressed in Klingon? How would one say, for instance, "I don't know whether Mike stole my pie"?
chabwIj nIHpu' Mike 'e' vISovbe' I don't know whether Mike stole my pie. This is no more unusual than this canonical sentence: tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISIv I wonder if you speak Klingon. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
But {Sov} and {SIv} don't work the same way. It is stated that {SIv} can be used after {'e'} and then explicitly can be translated as "to wonder if". The semantics of the verb allow this reading. Not so with {Sov}. Here you'd have a question as the object, which isn't allowed in Klingon. chabwIj nIHpu' Mike 'e' vISovbe'
I don't know whether Mike stole my pie.
I don't accept this translation. That sentence can only mean: "I don't know that Mike stole my pie." (or perhaps in a more usual context "I didn't know that...") Think of {SIv} as "I want to know the truth value of the sentence..." which is essentially what "wonder if" means. {Sov} doesn't seem to have that particular reading. — André / Vortarulo
On 6/10/2024 9:03 PM, André Müller wrote:
chabwIj nIHpu' Mike 'e' vISovbe' I don't know whether Mike stole my pie.
I don't accept this translation. That sentence can only mean: "I don't know that Mike stole my pie."
I fail to see the difference in meaning. Both sentences take the proposition that Mike stole my pie and declare my lack of knowledge that it's true. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
While he’s excellently capable of defending his proposition, I’m with SuStel on this one. It conveys the meaning excellently, without messing with QaO (Question as Object, which is not a thing in Klingon). I’ll add that I think, “I wonder whether whether Mike stole my pie,” is a rather day-dreamy thing for a Klingon to say. “Maybe he stole it. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. I guess I’d sort of like to know. Gee, I wonder if there’s any way to know for sure. If anybody hears anything about my pie or anybody who might know whether Mike took it or not, it sure would be nice if somebody told me.” It would be much more in character to walk up to Mike, head-butt him and ask, nose to nose: {chabwIj DanIH, qar’a’?} pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)
On Jun 10, 2024, at 9:03 PM, André Müller via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> wrote:
But {Sov} and {SIv} don't work the same way. It is stated that {SIv} can be used after {'e'} and then explicitly can be translated as "to wonder if". The semantics of the verb allow this reading. Not so with {Sov}. Here you'd have a question as the object, which isn't allowed in Klingon.
chabwIj nIHpu' Mike 'e' vISovbe' I don't know whether Mike stole my pie.
I don't accept this translation. That sentence can only mean: "I don't know that Mike stole my pie." (or perhaps in a more usual context "I didn't know that...")
Think of {SIv} as "I want to know the truth value of the sentence..." which is essentially what "wonder if" means. {Sov} doesn't seem to have that particular reading.
— André / Vortarulo
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On Tue, Jun 11, 2024 at 1:20 AM SuStel via tlhIngan-Hol < tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> wrote:
On 6/10/2024 5:19 PM, James Landau via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:
I was reading the Klingon wiki's page on conjunctions today, and read about the seven (eight if you count *'a'* and *'ach* separately) conjunctions of Klingon, and how other conjunctions are expressed by suffixes.
That got me wondering: How is the concept of "whether" expressed in Klingon? How would one say, for instance, "I don't know whether Mike stole my pie"?
chabwIj nIHpu' Mike 'e' vISovbe' I don't know whether Mike stole my pie.
Doesn't this mean "I don't know *that* Mike stole my pie"? That is: Mike stole my pie, but I don't (or didn't) know it. It's logically a bit weird because the speaker surely knows about something that they're stating to be a fact. But since Klingon doesn't have tense (and an aspect marker isn't allowed on the second verb of a SAO construction), the speaker may well be saying that they didn't know a fact in the past. Consider that {qama'pu' DIHoH 'e' luSov} means "They know we kill prisoners" according to TKD. Negating the second verb, I think {qama'pu' DIHoH 'e' luSovbe'} should mean "They don't know we kill prisoners" (i.e., we do kill prisoners, but they don't know it), and not "They don't know whether we kill prisoners" (i.e., we may or may not kill prisoners, and it is not clear to them which is true).
This is no more unusual than this canonical sentence:
tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISIv I wonder if you speak Klingon.
I think it's different because the object of {SIv} is something the subject is wondering about (and thus may or may not be true), whereas the object of {Sov} is something that the subject knows (or doesn't know, in the case of {Sovbe'}) and should be a fact. Of course, you could have a situation where someone is bluffing, e.g., they say {qama'pu' DIHoH 'e' luSovbe'} "They don't know that we kill prisoners" when the speaker, in fact, does not kill prisoners but wants the listener to think they do, and the sentence is technically true (but leads to wrong assumptions on the listener's part). -- De'vID
On 6/11/2024 12:24 PM, De'vID wrote:
I think it's different because the object of {SIv} is something the subject is wondering about (and thus may or may not be true), whereas the object of {Sov} is something that the subject knows (or doesn't know, in the case of {Sovbe'}) and should be a fact.
But in the case of *chabwIj nIHpu' Mike 'e' vISovbe'* you're supposing that *chabwIj nIHpu' Mike* is a statement of fact, while with *tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISIv* you're supposing that *tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh* is a hypothetical. I put it to you that Klingon doesn't actually distinguish whether the first sentence of a sentence-as-object is indicative or subjunctive. English makes the distinction with the /if/ or /whether/ or /that,/ but Klingon does no such thing. So if you're someone who doesn't know whether Mike stole your pie, you have clear context to say *chabwIj nIHpu' Mike 'e' vISovbe',* and it'll be interpreted as a subjunctive clause, meaning /I don't know whether Mike stole my pie./ We see this sort of thing in canon a lot. For instance, when Klaa says *«qIrq vIjeylaHchugh,» *Vixis responds *«qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Duj law' Hoch Dun puS.»* Vixis's statement is subjunctive in context, but it's not /marked/ as subjunctive in any way. She's not saying Klaa /is/ the greatest warrior in the galaxy; she's saying he /would be/ the greatest warrior in the galaxy /if/ he could defeat Kirk. So I see no problem with saying *chabwIj nIHpu' Mike 'e' vISovbe'.* I'm taking the statement *chabwIj nIHpu' Mike,* never mind whether it's a fact or not, and saying that I do not know it. If the context were "Hey, did you hear that Mike stole your pie?" it would be interpreted as "No, I didn't know that Mike stole my pie." If the context were "Hey, has Mike stolen your pie?" it would be interpreted as "I don't know whether Mike stole my pie." -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
participants (6)
-
André Müller -
De'vID -
James Landau -
Mark E. Shoulson -
SuStel -
Will Martin