I am wondering whether it would make sense to say: wej vIghro' motlh 'ab vIghro'vam tIQ this ancient cat has a length of three ordinary cats ~ changan qIj I find defiance of ca'non disturbing
On 3/22/2019 1:43 PM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
I am wondering whether it would make sense to say:
wej vIghro' motlh 'ab vIghro'vam tIQ this ancient cat has a length of three ordinary cats
vIlaj.
I find defiance of ca'non disturbing
bIvoqbe'mo' vISujlu'. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
jIH:
I find defiance of ca'non disturbing SuStel: bIvoqbe'mo' vISujlu'.
Interesting.. But let me ask you. What is your opinion, with regards to the following: bIvoqbe', 'ej muSuj you don't believe, and it (this fact) disturbs me Do you see any problem, with the subject of {Suj} being the implied and unstated fact of "not believing" ? ~ mayqel qunen'oS I find ca'non inadherence disturbing
On 3/24/2019 8:40 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
jIH:
I find defiance of ca'non disturbing SuStel: bIvoqbe'mo' vISujlu'.
Interesting.. But let me ask you. What is your opinion, with regards to the following:
bIvoqbe', 'ej muSuj you don't believe, and it (this fact) disturbs me
Do you see any problem, with the subject of {Suj} being the implied and unstated fact of "not believing" ?
It's not ungrammatical to elide an *'oH* which refers to *ngoDvam.* However, you never established the antecedent in the first place. What you're really doing is *bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj 'e'.* This is, of course, not allowed. Another way to translate the line would be *muSuj voqbe'ghachlIj.* Actually, I like this better than my first one. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On 3/25/2019 5:02 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
SuStel:
However, you never established the antecedent in the first place
What is an antecedent ?
In this context, an antecedent is a word which that appears before /(ante) /a pronoun, to which the pronouns refers. /I see the captain. He seems fine./ In that sentence, /the //captain/ is the antecedent of the pronoun /he./ -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Mar 25, 2019, at 07:48, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/25/2019 5:02 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote: SuStel:
However, you never established the antecedent in the first place
What is an antecedent ? In this context, an antecedent is a word which that appears before (ante) a pronoun, to which the pronouns refers. I see the captain. He seems fine. In that sentence, the captain is the antecedent of the pronoun he.
Is it established that Klingon pronouns can’t be used without an antecedent? There’s an implied subject to verbs of weather like {SIS}, {SuS}, {peD}, {Heq}, {jev}, {raw}, {tuD}, etc., that never gets stated. Naturally, these are special cases, since whatever the implied subject of these verbs is, it’s not like another subject could take its place, but it does make me question whether a verb needs an explicitly stated subject (whether used directly following it, or as an explicit or implicit pronoun referring to some previous explicit antecedent) more generally. I would probably write the second sentence as {vImerlu'}, but does it make sense with the subject in parentheses elided?: {jorpu' 'aplo'. mumer (wanI').} Again, weather verbs are special, but what if it were something like: {SIStaH (SISwI'). mumer (SISwI'/ngoDvam).} ({SISwI'} here is whatever the implied subject of {SIS} is.)
On 3/25/2019 9:15 AM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
On Mar 25, 2019, at 07:48, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name <mailto:sustel@trimboli.name>> wrote:
On 3/25/2019 5:02 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
SuStel:
However, you never established the antecedent in the first place
What is an antecedent ?
In this context, an antecedent is a word which that appears before /(ante) /a pronoun, to which the pronouns refers. /I see the captain. He seems fine./ In that sentence, /the //captain/ is the antecedent of the pronoun /he./
Is it established that Klingon pronouns can’t be used without an antecedent?
No, but I didn't say he can't say his sentence because Klingon pronouns can't be used without an antecedent. Indeed, I didn't say he can't say that sentence. He was pushing the boundary of what was acceptable, because he claimed his proposed pronoun *'oH* was referring to an antecedent *ngoDvam* that wasn't present in the sentence, but what he was doing was functionally equivalent to using *'e'* as a subject, which definitely /isn't/ allowed. If you have to say it this way, just state *ngoDvam* outright and you'll have a much stronger sentence. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
jIH:
bIvoqbe', 'ej muSuj you don't believe, and it (this fact) disturbs me SuStel: What you're really doing is bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj 'e'. This is, of course, not allowed.
I understand your reasoning, and it convinces me. But doesn't this reasoning mean that the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}, is wrong too ? Isn't the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}, actually {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj 'e'!} ? I know that it is blasphemous to dare and question something which has been celebrated as a feat of linguistic ingenuity.. I really do. But, - holy sith ! -, I'm sure as hell, that if a mere mortal had come up with this phrase, he would have been executed on the spot. ~ m. qunen'oS I find ignorance of ca'non disturbing
On 3/26/2019 10:26 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
jIH:
bIvoqbe', 'ej muSuj you don't believe, and it (this fact) disturbs me SuStel: What you're really doing is bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj 'e'. This is, of course, not allowed. I understand your reasoning, and it convinces me.
But doesn't this reasoning mean that the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}, is wrong too ? Isn't the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}, actually {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj 'e'!} ?
I know that it is blasphemous to dare and question something which has been celebrated as a feat of linguistic ingenuity.. I really do. But, - holy sith ! -, I'm sure as hell, that if a mere mortal had come up with this phrase, he would have been executed on the spot.
*tlhIngan maH taHjaj* is (a) a slogan, and (b) not canonical. As a slogan, it's not going to be careful to ensure everyone knows what the antecedent of its elided pronouns are. As a non-canonical sentence, it's not a data point in what can and cannot be said. Now, I have no doubt that Okrand will canonize *tlhIngan maH taHjaj* the first chance he gets, if he hasn't already and I don't remember. There's nothing ungrammatical about it; as with your sentence, you can assume the subject of *taHjaj* is an elided noun, like *ghu'vam* or something. I suspect it doesn't matter in the same way that the subject of *SIS* doesn't matter. Everybody keeps acting like I'm passing down an an edict, but I'm not. You asked whether you could say *bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj,* and I said it's not ungrammatical. I questioned whether you really were eliding a *ngoDvam* or if you were really just eliding an *'e'* and not admitting it to yourself. And I still think *muSuj voqbe'ghachlIj* is the best translation of the line. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
SuStel:
Everybody keeps acting like I'm passing down an an edict, but I'm not. You asked whether you could say bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj, and I said it's not ungrammatical. I questioned whether you really were eliding a ngoDvam or if you were really just eliding an 'e' and not admitting it to yourself.
You misunderstood me. Please, let me explain.. I *totally* agree with your analysis. Absolutely. As I wrote, I am convinced by the arguments you wrote. And believe it or not, I was relieved to read your analysis on my original sentence, because it made me understand. I *felt* that something was *not quite right* with that sentence, but I couldn't find what. And as soon as I read your opinion I understood. My problem is with the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}..
From the first time I heard it, I felt that something was off with that sentence; but I knew that since a specific person wrote it, and it appears in a star trek too, then no one was going to admit that there is something not quite right with that sentence.
So, I took the opportunity of this thread, to express my problem with the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}.. I never liked it anyway.. Now, probably 'oqranD will canonize it, but that's another matter. What matters is that we understand what's happening with that phrase: 1. If anyone else wrote it, he would hear that he is wrong 2. ..which would be true 3. however okrand will probably canonize it because.. 4. it appears in a star trek, and.. 5. he wouldn't want to say to a friend of maltz that his sentence has serious issues So, the morale of all this is twofold: 1. If you are a friend of maltz, and you write sentences which appear in a movie, then all is allowed 2. If you are a mere mortal, i.e. a nobody, then you better follow the rules or you're f****d ~ m. qunen'oS I find sentences as subjects disturbing
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 2:16 PM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
So, I took the opportunity of this thread, to express my problem with the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}..
*bo'Dagh'a'vetlh Dalo'nISbe'. *That phrasing is fine (it's just not intended to be a literal translation) and I would say so even if it had never appeared on screen. I also don't see a problem with *bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj.* The fact that you can't use *'e'* as a subject doesn't mean there's no way to refer to a previous utterance as the subject. It just means you can't use *'e'* to do it. Words like *ghu'vam* or *ngoDvam* are one option. The example of *Do'Ha'* suggests you can also do it with just an unstated third-person subject. (I'm still looking for other examples. *qay'be'* used as "No problem!" is one; the subject presumably refers to the thing the speaker was just told or asked to do. The use of *rIntaH* and *qar'a'* as "auxiliary verbs" are also examples, though they're a little weird grammatically.)
I really think you are taking {Do’Ha’} and {qay’be’} and other fossilized, common responses to situations too seriously. It’s like {tu’lu’}. It’s fossilized by habit. Somewhere back in history, someone was probably actually thinking when they said this the first time, but since then, everybody has latched onto it as “the thing you say when stuff like this happens”. It’s not like a normal grammatical construction anymore. It’s like “yes” and “no”; an utterance that conveys a thought or feeling that is so familiar to common experience that it immediately conveys, “Yeah, it’s that again.” {Do’Ha’} is so fossilized as a sentence that it has become an adverbial introduction to other sentences. Consider {rIntaH} and {qar’a’?}. You can’t look at these and derive general rules about Klingon grammar. All of these extremely common, brief utterances do not give you evidence of how Klingon grammar generally works. You can’t take a unique, new sentence and treat it as if it were one of these fossilized nuggets of common expression. It’s like the way that natural languages have rules about verbs, and then there are irregular verbs, and it’s always the most common verbs that are irregular. This is so true that as previously common, irregular words become used less often, as they become semi-obsolete, they become regularized. None of this justifies the general practice of pairing two sentences and representing the first sentence as an unstated pronoun acting as subject of the verb in the second sentence. There is no formal grammar linking pairs of sentences in this way. We have formal grammar for Sentence As Object linking pairs of sentences. We have formal grammar for pairing directly quoted speech with the sentence with the verb of speech. We basically pair sentences where the second sentence is {rIntaH} or {qar’a’?}. There are enough of these explicitly described grammatical constructions for pairing sentences to be pretty clear that they didn’t just accidentally omit the one where the first sentence is the subject of the second sentence. That probably didn’t happen. More than likely, it’s simply not a thing in Klingon. You can’t just make it a thing in Klingon. You might be able to get away with it in conversation every rare now and then, and people will understand you, but if you start peppering your speech with it, it’s going to sound weird and confusing. You are going to seem to be a person who doesn’t quite speak the Empiror’s Klingon. It will be hard for you to attract a mate. Business associates will disassociate from you. Old women will amuse themselves, sniggering gossip with each other about the most recent stupid thing you said. No one will stop you from implying that the subject of a particular sentence is an unstated pronoun representing the previous sentence. The Constitution guarantees your right to free speech, even if what you say is complete gibberish. Our political system thrives on this. But I really think that further research into canon examples of a pair of sentences with the first sentence represented by an implied subject pronoun for the verb of the second sentence… is misguided. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 26, 2019, at 3:16 PM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 2:16 PM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com <mailto:mihkoun@gmail.com>> wrote:
So, I took the opportunity of this thread, to express my problem with the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}..
bo'Dagh'a'vetlh Dalo'nISbe'. That phrasing is fine (it's just not intended to be a literal translation) and I would say so even if it had never appeared on screen. I also don't see a problem with bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj. The fact that you can't use 'e' as a subject doesn't mean there's no way to refer to a previous utterance as the subject. It just means you can't use 'e' to do it. Words like ghu'vam or ngoDvam are one option. The example of Do'Ha' suggests you can also do it with just an unstated third-person subject.
(I'm still looking for other examples. qay'be' used as "No problem!" is one; the subject presumably refers to the thing the speaker was just told or asked to do. The use of rIntaH and qar'a' as "auxiliary verbs" are also examples, though they're a little weird grammatically.)
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 4:18 PM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
I really think you are taking {Do’Ha’} and {qay’be’} and other fossilized, common responses to situations too seriously.
[...]
Consider {rIntaH} and {qar’a’?}. You can’t look at these and derive general rules about Klingon grammar.
I acknowledged in my post that *rInta**H* and *qar'a'* are weird examples. (Although in TKD their weirdness is just in where they go in the sentence: the translation of *rIntaH* as "it continues to be finished" or "it remains accomplished" isn't presented as being in any way unusual.) But do you have any justification whatsoever for arguing that *Do'Ha'* and *qay'be'* are fossilized forms rather than ordinary sentences? Did I miss a memo from Maltz somewhere? (Or are you just mad that your stylistic preference isn't supported by canon?)
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 5:15 PM nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 4:18 PM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
I really think you are taking {Do’Ha’} and {qay’be’} and other fossilized, common responses to situations too seriously.
[...]
Consider {rIntaH} and {qar’a’?}. You can’t look at these and derive general rules about Klingon grammar.
I acknowledged in my post that *rInta**H* and *qar'a'* are weird examples. (Although in TKD their weirdness is just in where they go in the sentence: the translation of *rIntaH* as "it continues to be finished" or "it remains accomplished" isn't presented as being in any way unusual.)
But do you have any justification whatsoever for arguing that *Do'Ha'* and *qay'be'* are fossilized forms rather than ordinary sentences? Did I miss a memo from Maltz somewhere? (Or are you just mad that your stylistic preference isn't supported by canon?)
I did find two more examples of a third-person subject standing in for a previous utterance. The first is from HolQeD 12:3, pages 8-10 ( http://klingonska.org/canon/2003-09-holqed-12-3.txt): Maltz distinguished this phrase from another "Oh, yeah?" meaning simply "Is
that so?" (as in "I just heard some interesting news." "Oh, yeah? What is it?"). This would be {qar'a'}, literally <is (it) accurate?> ({qar} <be accurate>, {-'a'} <question>).
This is *qar'a'* again, so it might not count as an all-new example. But in this case, it's presented as an ordinary sentence on its own, not as an auxiliary verb. The description is brief, but it doesn't say anything about "it" as a subject being an unusual way to refer to what's just been said. The second is from paq'batlh (Book paq'raq, Canto 5, lines 1-3, page 109): *qotar qotar qotar *
* DachchoH cha' qa'* * 'e' DaSov 'ach chay' qaS*
*Kotar, Kotar, Kotar!* * Two of your souls are missing,* * You can sense it, but how can it be?*
In line 3, *chay' qaS* ("How does/did it happen?") has no explicit subject, and the "it" refers to the fact that Kotar's souls are missing. The next lines are dialogue by Kotar yelling at Fek'lhr, so it's not the case that the subject of *qaS* was moved to the next line. I admit that it doesn't appear to be a very common construction, but with four canonical examples (four and a half, maybe, with *rIntaH*), I can't agree that it's ungrammatical.
On 3/26/2019 9:08 PM, nIqolay Q wrote:
Iadmit that it doesn't appear to be a very common construction, but with four canonical examples (four and a half, maybe, with *rIntaH*), I can't agree that it's ungrammatical.
Who said it's ungrammatical? -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Mar 26, 2019, at 11:03 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
Who said it's ungrammatical?
It looks like you did. On Mar 24, 2019, at 4:59 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
It's not ungrammatical to elide an 'oH which refers to ngoDvam. However, you never established the antecedent in the first place.
What you're really doing is bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj 'e'. This is, of course, not allowed.
You also posted something even more full of multiple negatives that I think parses out to “you can say it but it’s illegal.” Are you making some sort of a distinction between “ungrammatical” and “against the rules”? -- ghunchu'wI'
On 3/27/2019 9:26 AM, Alan Anderson wrote:
On Mar 26, 2019, at 11:03 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name <mailto:sustel@trimboli.name>> wrote:
Who said it's ungrammatical?
It looks like you did.
On Mar 24, 2019, at 4:59 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name <mailto:sustel@trimboli.name>> wrote:
It's not ungrammatical to elide an *'oH* which refers to *ngoDvam.* However, you never established the antecedent in the first place.
What you're really doing is *bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj 'e'.* This is, of course, not allowed.
You also posted something even more full of multiple negatives that I think parses out to “you can say it but it’s illegal.” Are you making some sort of a distinction between “ungrammatical” and “against the rules”?
I said "it's not ungrammatical" to elide a pronoun. Then I said "What you're really doing is" making *'e'* a subject, and THAT is not allowed. I did not say *bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj* is ungrammatical, only that it has to assume an elided noun like *ngoDvam* to be grammatical. Good grief! mayqel asked if there was something wrong about *bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj,* because he felt like there was. I was pointing out that his bad feeling probably came from mentally thinking of this as *bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj 'e',* which is a sentence that IS ungrammatical, and I said so. I also pointed out that mayqel's actual sentence itself is not actually ungrammatical, because it can be interpreted as something like *bIvoqbe' 'ej muSuj nogDvam.* I believed this was NOT what mayqel had been thinking, because of his bad feeling about the sentence. I also opined that this sentence was probably not the best way to say this, because there was an elided pronoun without an antecedent, and offered alternatives. This was a stylistic opinion on my part. I didn't tell anyone his sentence was ungrammatical, against the rules, or illegal. And if you all insist on continuing to find a way to read what I said that way, just take the above paragraph as a revised statement. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Mar 27, 2019, at 08:46, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
I believed this was NOT what mayqel had been thinking, because of his bad feeling about the sentence.
mubaw'Ha'moH ghu'vam. (Sorry, since this started off as a translation of a Star Wars line, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to “have a bad feeling about this.”)
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 11:03 PM SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/26/2019 9:08 PM, nIqolay Q wrote:
I admit that it doesn't appear to be a very common construction, but with four canonical examples (four and a half, maybe, with *rIntaH*), I can't agree that it's ungrammatical.
Who said it's ungrammatical?
charghwI''s post definitely gave me the impression that he thought it was ungrammatical, although he managed to not use that specific word. Well, if nothing else, it was nice to read paq'batlh again.
On 3/27/2019 11:13 AM, nIqolay Q wrote:
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 11:03 PM SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name <mailto:sustel@trimboli.name>> wrote:
On 3/26/2019 9:08 PM, nIqolay Q wrote:
Iadmit that it doesn't appear to be a very common construction, but with four canonical examples (four and a half, maybe, with *rIntaH*), I can't agree that it's ungrammatical.
Who said it's ungrammatical?
charghwI''s post definitely gave me the impression that he thought it was ungrammatical, although he managed to not use that specific word.
I read his post as saying that the canonical examples we have were more or less fixed expressions, and that we can't create general rules from fixed expressions, because fixed expressions might or might not follow the rules of grammar. I don't agree with the certainty with which he claims that these expressions are fossilized, and I disagree with his statement that looking further into the matter is misguided, but I didn't see any prohibitions in what he said. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
I didn’t say that it was ungrammatical because I don’t believe that it’s ungrammatical. I think it’s misguided, because I don’t think the meaning is as clear as it sounds like the original poster wanted it to be, and I think that, like I said, it is something you can get away with in conversational speech on rare occasions, but if you somehow latch onto the idea that this is fine, this is normal, this is well-constructed, then you are mistaken for the very reason that it made the original poster uncomfortable, and for the same reason that SuStel was less than enthusiastic about endorsing the practice. The missing pronoun that acts as subject of the second verb is functioning the same way as the pronoun {‘e’} functions in a Sentence As Object construction. It represents the previous sentence. This is not ungrammatical. It’s merely hideous, when it tries to formalize a general rule of what is okay to do, when Klingon has no such rule. I mean, if you can just imagine a pronoun that can act as subject of the second sentence and represent the first sentence, why not just imagine a pronoun acting as object of the second sentence that represents the first sentence? Poof! No need for {‘e’} or {net}. Any sentence can just be invisibly represented by any unstated pronoun acting as subject or object in the following sentence. That path leads to chaos. So, I repeat, it is not ungrammatical. It is merely hideous. You can’t rely on your reader/listener to consistently realize, “OH, I GET IT. THAT UNSTATED SUBJECT OF THE SECOND VERB REPRESTENTS THE ENTIRE PREVIOUS SENTENCE. WHAT A GREAT IDEA? WHY DIDN’T OKRAND THINK OF THAT? Am I clear yet? charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 27, 2019, at 11:13 AM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 11:03 PM SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name <mailto:sustel@trimboli.name>> wrote: On 3/26/2019 9:08 PM, nIqolay Q wrote:
I admit that it doesn't appear to be a very common construction, but with four canonical examples (four and a half, maybe, with rIntaH), I can't agree that it's ungrammatical. Who said it's ungrammatical?
charghwI''s post definitely gave me the impression that he thought it was ungrammatical, although he managed to not use that specific word.
Well, if nothing else, it was nice to read paq'batlh again. _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 1:07 PM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
I mean, if you can just imagine a pronoun that can act as subject of the second sentence and represent the first sentence, why not just imagine a pronoun acting as object of the second sentence that represents the first sentence? Poof! No need for {‘e’} or {net}. Any sentence can just be invisibly represented by any unstated pronoun acting as subject or object in the following sentence.
You can already do that. For example, TKD: *vIta'pu'be'.* *I didn't do it.* There's also this dialogue from ST6: https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2006/May/msg00201.html
Chang: narghta'? narghta'. ([They have] Escaped.) Grokh: qay'be'. Daq SovlaHbe'taH qIrq. (Kirk cannot know the location of the peace conference.) {It does not matter ... Kirk cannot know the location.} Chang: DaSovbej'a'? bISuDrup'a'? (Are you sure? Will you take that chance?) {Are you sure [of that]? ... Are you willing to take that chance?}
*DaSovbej'a' *has an unstated pronoun as object, referring to Grokh's sentence. (Grokh's sentence also uses *qay'be'*, with an unstated subject referring to Chang's earlier statement that Kirk and Spock had escaped.) Leaving out *'e'* might cause confusion if there's something else in the context that might also work as a third-person subject, and the two sentences may feel less connected into a single thought, but it's not the end of the world if you leave it out. So, I repeat, it is not ungrammatical. It is merely hideous. You can’t rely
on your reader/listener to consistently realize, “OH, I GET IT. THAT UNSTATED SUBJECT OF THE SECOND VERB REPRESTENTS THE ENTIRE PREVIOUS SENTENCE. WHAT A GREAT IDEA? WHY DIDN’T OKRAND THINK OF THAT?
He did think of that, at least four times. I mentioned them in my earlier posts. I assume the reason he did not spell this out formally is because he didn't think he needed to explain to his audience how to use "it".
On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 1:43 PM nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:
He did think of that, at least four times.
Make that "at least five times":
*ghIq jach qa'rol* * maQ 'oH* * HemHa'choH 'ej cho'choH moratlh* *Then the qa'rol raises voice* * The signal for Morath* * To lose his pride and claim a throne.*
(paq'batlh, book paq'yav, Canto 5, lines 10-12) *maQ 'oH* is a different sort of example, because it uses a pronoun-as-copula instead of a pronomial prefix, but it's another example of a previous statement (*jach qa'rol*) being referred to in the subject as "it". From context, it seems clear that the signal is the qa'rol crying out, rather than just the qa'rol itself, so *'oH* must be referring to the whole act and not merely *qa'rol*.
charghwI':
And this is why I sometimes intentionally break this rule because there is no real language-related reason that you can’t
I find this "logic" flawed. We can't have the criterion of "why okrand created whatever rule", and then decide which rules we should keep, and which ones discard. Perhaps okrand created a rule in order to canonize someone's mistake.. Perhaps he created a rule, believing it to be necessary for the language.. Perhaps he created a rule, because seven cats were meowing in concert under his window while he was trying to sleep.. Whatever the case though, since he has made up his mind, we need to accept it. Agreeing with De'vID, who recently wrote that some "just-because" rules add character to the language, I can't understand why there is a need to break any rules to begin with. Why do we need to transliterate ? When did okrand say, that we should do so ? Why do we need to break the -Daq rule ? Why do we need to use type-7 in a sao ? If okrand wanted to allow the use of type-7s in a sao, then he could say something like "as centuries go by, within the empire the use of type-7s in a sao gradually increases and is becoming something acceptable". But he hasn't said something like that.. If we start breaking the rules, then soon we will not be able to communicate with each other. ~ m. qunen'oS I find ca'non inadherence disturbing
On Thu, 28 Mar 2019 13:01:53 +0200 "mayqel qunen'oS" <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
charghwI':
And this is why I sometimes intentionally break this rule because there is no real language-related reason that you can’t
I find this "logic" flawed.
...
If we start breaking the rules, then soon we will not be able to communicate with each other.
While there is a limit before communication breaks down, people break the rules of the English language every day. The way we speak while hanging out with your friends is certainly different from what we would write in a college essay. I am not saying we should just ignore all the rules; I just saying that in casual conversation, we can get away with it a little bit. Okrand even mentions such in the books. I don't have the quotes handy and I am running late for work. - DloraH
On 3/28/2019 8:38 AM, DloraH wrote:
While there is a limit before communication breaks down, people break the rules of the English language every day. The way we speak while hanging out with your friends is certainly different from what we would write in a college essay.
It certainly is. And yet those two ways of speaking both have known rules that grammarians can describe. In a college essay I could write "You will not do that" and with my friends it might be "You ain't gonna do that," and both of these are grammatical in their own contexts. But if I'm standing around with my friends and always say "no is" instead of "will not" or "ain't gonna," they'll understand me but they won't accept the way I'm talking. "You no is gonna do that" is not acceptable in either context, and not in any context except something like Lolcat. And the problem here is that we know very little about these different modes of speaking among Klingons. I can't point to any subculture or demographic that allows *-taH* with *-jaj,* so I can't declare it as being acceptable to any particular group.
I am not saying we should just ignore all the rules; I just saying that in casual conversation, we can get away with it a little bit. Okrand even mentions such in the books. I don't have the quotes handy and I am running late for work.
The tendency around here will be to take that little bit of leeway and justify using it constantly. If using *-taH* with *-jaj* is an example of acceptable breaking of the rules, then every time I find myself wanting *-taH* with *-jaj* I'm going to justify using it by telling myself it's okay just this time, because I /reeeeeaaalllly/ need it this time. The correct course of action is to stick to the rules until we get more information about the rules. If you throw out a stray *-taHjaj* in casual use probably nobody will say anything, if they even notice, but if you start using it as a rhetorical device you deserve to be called out for it. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Am 28.03.2019 um 13:38 schrieb DloraH:
I am not saying we should just ignore all the rules; I just saying that in casual conversation, we can get away with it a little bit. Okrand even mentions such in the books. I don't have the quotes handy and I am running late for work.
Most quotes around this are summarized in the Wiki: http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/ContradictoryRules It's in KGT where he writes that Klingons sometimes break grammatical rules, while talking about the error of omitting the lu- prefix. (p.172: "Agreeing is not a trait typically associated with Klingon nature, however, and apparently, at least under certain circumstances, this may extend to grammar as well." -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de
On Mar 28, 2019, at 7:01 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
If okrand wanted to allow the use of type-7s in a sao, then he could say something like "as centuries go by, within the empire the use of type-7s in a sao gradually increases and is becoming something acceptable".
Or he might just casually use them in examples, without calling attention to it. -- ghunchu'wI'
On 3/28/2019 9:42 AM, Alan Anderson wrote:
On Mar 28, 2019, at 7:01 AM, mayqel qunen'oS<mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
If okrand wanted to allow the use of type-7s in a sao, then he could say something like "as centuries go by, within the empire the use of type-7s in a sao gradually increases and is becoming something acceptable". Or he might just casually use them in examples, without calling attention to it.
Either might be true. How do we decide? -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
{vIta’be’pu’} is not specifically linked to THE sentence that precedes it. You can always have implied pronouns referring to the context of the conversation up to this point or the situation you find yourself in. The point I’m objecting to is this idea that you should present two sentences next to each other and have an implied subject or object of the second sentence be formally recognized as being limited to the content of the previous single sentence. What do I have to say to make this clear? Why am I perpetually misunderstood on this simple topic? Okrand came up with the Sentence As Object construction as formal grammar for the language. He invented the pronouns {‘e’} and {net}. They have no usage in the language at all, outside of this single grammatical construction. He did not let us use either of these as pronouns in the Subject position and he did not come up with new pronouns that could do that. He intentionally created this asymmetry in the language. It’s like the way he gave us {t} and {D}, breaking the kind of symmetry that human languages have in tongue placement for these two consonants. A Klingon {D} is not a voiced Klingon {t}. He did this on purpose. How many times do I have to say that, yes, in conversation, you can imply an earlier sentence is represented by the unstated subject of a subsequent sentence and not violate any grammar rules? How many times do I have to explain that when you do this, you rely on it being obvious that the subject of that new sentence means what you think it means? It never means “the previous sentence”. It always means, “the context of what we are talking about”. If the previous sentence happens to be the context that we are talking about, fine. No problem. But it could just as easily be some other sentence that was stated earlier than the previous sentence, or it could even be a sentence that was never explicitly stated but understood as the topic of the three hour meeting we’ve all been having together. It could even be something other than a sentence; just a topic or fragment of a sentence. It could be Voldemort’s name. It could be anything that any appropriate pronoun implied by the verb prefix represents. {‘e’} and {net} have a known, specific meaning. They always mean, “the previous sentence”. They don’t mean “Something you said five minutes ago and we’re all still talking about, but the previous sentence was about something else”. Meanwhile, this unspoken pronoun that represents something could represent ANYTHING. It is not grammatically bound to the previous sentence. You could not blame someone for misunderstanding you if you’d been focused on talking about an important subject, and then uttered a non-sequitur and in the next sentence did this unspoken pronoun thing to represent your non-sequitur, while the person you are speaking to assumes that you are still talking about this general context you’ve been discussing in a focused way for a long duration. That’s what makes it hideous. You are mentally assuming that this unspoken topic has to be the previous sentence. It doesn’t. That’s why, if you do this a lot, you will quite probably be misunderstood at some point, because you are pretending that you have discovered the missing Sentence As Subject grammatical construction that Okrand forgot to give us, and you haven’t. There isn’t one. It’s not simply there, but undescribed by TKD. It’s not there at all. Yes, you can find examples where it was sort of done that way, but it doesn’t prove what you are seeking to make it prove. It’s like being in a room and having someone turn on a lightbulb and you assume it must be morning, because the rising Sun causes the room to go from darkness to light, and it doesn’t occur to you that maybe some other thing is causing the effect that you are noticing. You can always imply The Topic We Are All Talking About is the unstated subject or object of a sentence. You can’t always assume that the sentence preceding the current sentence is The Topic That We Are All Talking About. You can’t always assume that an unstated subject or object of a sentence definitely is nothing other than the sentence that was uttered just before this new sentence. Is there something else I could possibly say to make this clearer? It’s not ungrammatical. It’s just not as clear or generally useful as certain persons would perhaps like it to be. Wanting it to be that way doesn’t make it that way. It’s not banned. You can do it. You probably shouldn’t do it very often, because it can easily be confusing. You will have gone through the process of expressing an idea without perhaps going back and looking at the result to see if it actually succeeds in expressing what you intended for it to express. You will quite naturally come up with this kind of expression in specific contexts and it will work fine. You just can’t assume that it’s a general rule that will always work for you. Making that assumption would be hideous. That’s my objection. Making the assumption that this is a generally useful construction that skips past the problem of not having a Sentence As Subject grammatical construction is a mistake. Really. It’s not that I haven’t noticed any canon that could be interpreted this way because it also could be interpreted other ways. In this case, canon proves nothing because you can’t know that an unstated subject or object is consistently representative of the previous sentence and nothing other than the previous sentence the way that you can know that {‘e’} and {net} represent the previous sentence and nothing but the previous sentence. I apologize for what is likely to be interpreted as tone in this and recent messages. I just get really frustrated when I feel like I’ve explained something and then someone comes up with yet another fragment of misunderstanding what I though I just explained. I’m fine with that the first or second or third time, but by the fifth or sixth time, it’s like this alternate persona shoves me out of the way and takes over the keyboard. I fight to retain control, and I lose the battle. This jerk who says rude stuff takes over. It’s like Jeckle and Hyde. It’s like ST3 when Kruge whips out his disruptor and wastes a perfectly good crewman and then growls, {Ha’DIbaH}. I don’t admire myself for this. It makes me unpopular. It’s the thing that has repeatedly driven me to take a break and leave the list for extended periods in order to stop being this confrontational person that I really am not in any other context. The passion is inexplicable, and counterproductive. jIja’egh: yItlhuH neH. nuHlIj yIpepHa’. QemDaq nuH yIcheghmoH. I respect the work you’ve put into this, and I don’t think that this practice is ungrammatical. I just think it’s not something that one can generally rely on because the implied pronouns of verb prefixes can represent a wide spectrum of entities that reach far beyond the previous sentence, and if you assume that your listener or reader will know exactly what that pronoun represents, you might be wrong. You might be misled into believing that it is obvious, when in fact it isn’t. That’s why it doesn’t work as a generalized rule. You don’t have control over the scope of what the implied pronoun represents to your listener/reader the way you do in SAO. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 27, 2019, at 1:43 PM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 1:07 PM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com <mailto:willmartin2@mac.com>> wrote: I mean, if you can just imagine a pronoun that can act as subject of the second sentence and represent the first sentence, why not just imagine a pronoun acting as object of the second sentence that represents the first sentence? Poof! No need for {‘e’} or {net}. Any sentence can just be invisibly represented by any unstated pronoun acting as subject or object in the following sentence.
You can already do that. For example, TKD: vIta'pu'be'. I didn't do it.
There's also this dialogue from ST6: https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2006/May/msg00201.html <https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2006/May/msg00201.html>
Chang: narghta'? narghta'. ([They have] Escaped.) Grokh: qay'be'. Daq SovlaHbe'taH qIrq. (Kirk cannot know the location of the peace conference.) {It does not matter ... Kirk cannot know the location.} Chang: DaSovbej'a'? bISuDrup'a'? (Are you sure? Will you take that chance?) {Are you sure [of that]? ... Are you willing to take that chance?}
DaSovbej'a' has an unstated pronoun as object, referring to Grokh's sentence. (Grokh's sentence also uses qay'be', with an unstated subject referring to Chang's earlier statement that Kirk and Spock had escaped.) Leaving out 'e' might cause confusion if there's something else in the context that might also work as a third-person subject, and the two sentences may feel less connected into a single thought, but it's not the end of the world if you leave it out.
So, I repeat, it is not ungrammatical. It is merely hideous. You can’t rely on your reader/listener to consistently realize, “OH, I GET IT. THAT UNSTATED SUBJECT OF THE SECOND VERB REPRESTENTS THE ENTIRE PREVIOUS SENTENCE. WHAT A GREAT IDEA? WHY DIDN’T OKRAND THINK OF THAT?
He did think of that, at least four times. I mentioned them in my earlier posts. I assume the reason he did not spell this out formally is because he didn't think he needed to explain to his audience how to use "it".
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On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:15 AM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
The point I’m objecting to is this idea that you should present two sentences next to each other and have an implied subject or object of the second sentence be formally recognized as being limited to the content of the previous single sentence.
I absolutely don't think it should be formally recognized as being limited to the previous sentence, though.
It never means “the previous sentence”. It always means, “the context of what we are talking about”. If the previous sentence happens to be the context that we are talking about, fine. No problem. But it could just as easily be some other sentence that was stated earlier than the previous sentence, or it could even be a sentence that was never explicitly stated but understood as the topic of the three hour meeting we’ve all been having together. It could even be something other than a sentence; just a topic or fragment of a sentence. It could be Voldemort’s name. It could be anything that any appropriate pronoun implied by the verb prefix represents.
It *could* be anything that could be referred to... but it probably isn't. That's not how people determine things from context. They start with the things that are directly relevant to the conversation in its current moment: the topics being discussed, the events and things surrounding them, other people present, things that have just been said, things that the participants are physically indicating or interacting with. Those are the sorts of things that are generally assumed to be always salient. That is, if a referent or antecedent isn't explicitly present, it can probably be assumed to be one of those things. (There's probably a more formal or precise way of phrasing that, but I'm not a linguist.) If I'm at a sporting event, and the opposing team scores, and the friend I'm with grumbles, "Ah, this sucks!", what is the referent of "this"? How can I figure out what sucks? It *could* be anything: the stadium the game is taking place in, the view from the nosebleed seats, the ache in their knee that's been acting up ever since we had to walk up to our lousy seats, the half-eaten hot dog sitting in their lap on a plate, the ambient weather conditions, an unpleasant childhood memory that crossed their mind, or just general dissatisfaction with the world in general. However, because I have had conversations before, I can conclude that they are probably referring to something that is immediately relevant to the moment: the fact that the other team just scored. Like Klingon, English has linguistic constructions for explicitly connecting pronouns to their antecedents. My friend could have said "Ah, the other team scored again, and that sucks!" But because my friend is aware of how people usually interpret utterances in context, they didn't need to. "Ah, this sucks!" sufficed. On the other hand, if my friend had wanted to complain about something *not* immediately relevant, they would know that they probably need to introduce it explicitly before complaining about it. "Ah, I just remembered traffic on the ride home is going to be *awful*! This sucks!" or the like. From a Klingon perspective, that's where constructions like *'e'* or *ngoDvam* come in handy. This is what I'm getting at. Obviously, an unstated third-person subject or object is not guaranteed to refer to the previous statement, and I don't think there should be a rule to that effect. My argument is that, when Klingon speakers are trying to figure out the intended referent from context, "the previous sentence" is going to be considered as a possibility long before something discussed three hours ago, or something entirely unrelated. The point of trying to find canon citations was to support the idea that Klingons also have "the previous statement" in their mental category of immediate referents. Of course, there are other referents that would probably be considered first, like explicit third-person nouns, or something the speaker is pointing at. But I think "the previous statement" is much closer to the "explicit third-person nouns" end of the relevance spectrum than it is to the "Voldemort's name" end of the spectrum. If mayqel starts a conversation by saying to me, *bIvoqbe', 'ej muSuj*, how will I deduce what the subject of *muSuj* is? It's not referring to a third-person thing or person mentioned earlier in the sentence, because there are none, and there are no earlier sentences in our conversation to look back to. It's not referring to a third-person thing he's indicating physically, because this is the Internet and we both know I can't see if he's pointing at something. What's something else immediately relevant he could be referring to? Well, the thing he just said. It makes sense that the fact that I don't trust could be something that disturbs him, and the fact that the sentences are connected with *'ej* suggests at least some rhetorical connection. So I'll go with that. Yes, it's possible that he's disturbed by (say) the signs that Voldemort has returned, and that's what the subject of *muSuj* refers to, and for some reason he expressed his concerns in conjunction with an unrelated thought. But I know that participants in conversations try to say things that are obviously relevant (unless Maltz has some information on Klingon conversational maxims he hasn't been asked about), so it's probably not Voldemort. *va, tIqchoHpu' QInvam...*
Your argument is well stated. I accept it as a valid approach. Meanwhile, if someone said {bIvoqbe’, ‘ej muSuj}, to be honest, I’d interpret that as the Star Wars line “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” and I’d probably immediately fall to the task of trying to say it more clearly. Then, I’d hit the same wall the original translator probably hit, lacking an appropriate term for “The Force”, since that is an abstract concept of a different fictional Universe. {HoS’a’ DaHarbe’law’mo’, jIbelHa’.} Then again, Darth Vader isn’t just talking about The Force. He’s talking about The Dark Side of The Force. {HoS’a’ Hurgh Davoqbe’law’mo’, jIbelHa’.} But that could mean “Because you don’t trust/believe in the significant power’s pickle...”. [sigh] Sometimes, translation sucks. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 28, 2019, at 3:38 PM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:15 AM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com <mailto:willmartin2@mac.com>> wrote: The point I’m objecting to is this idea that you should present two sentences next to each other and have an implied subject or object of the second sentence be formally recognized as being limited to the content of the previous single sentence.
I absolutely don't think it should be formally recognized as being limited to the previous sentence, though.
It never means “the previous sentence”. It always means, “the context of what we are talking about”. If the previous sentence happens to be the context that we are talking about, fine. No problem. But it could just as easily be some other sentence that was stated earlier than the previous sentence, or it could even be a sentence that was never explicitly stated but understood as the topic of the three hour meeting we’ve all been having together. It could even be something other than a sentence; just a topic or fragment of a sentence. It could be Voldemort’s name. It could be anything that any appropriate pronoun implied by the verb prefix represents.
It could be anything that could be referred to... but it probably isn't. That's not how people determine things from context. They start with the things that are directly relevant to the conversation in its current moment: the topics being discussed, the events and things surrounding them, other people present, things that have just been said, things that the participants are physically indicating or interacting with. Those are the sorts of things that are generally assumed to be always salient. That is, if a referent or antecedent isn't explicitly present, it can probably be assumed to be one of those things. (There's probably a more formal or precise way of phrasing that, but I'm not a linguist.)
If I'm at a sporting event, and the opposing team scores, and the friend I'm with grumbles, "Ah, this sucks!", what is the referent of "this"? How can I figure out what sucks? It could be anything: the stadium the game is taking place in, the view from the nosebleed seats, the ache in their knee that's been acting up ever since we had to walk up to our lousy seats, the half-eaten hot dog sitting in their lap on a plate, the ambient weather conditions, an unpleasant childhood memory that crossed their mind, or just general dissatisfaction with the world in general. However, because I have had conversations before, I can conclude that they are probably referring to something that is immediately relevant to the moment: the fact that the other team just scored.
Like Klingon, English has linguistic constructions for explicitly connecting pronouns to their antecedents. My friend could have said "Ah, the other team scored again, and that sucks!" But because my friend is aware of how people usually interpret utterances in context, they didn't need to. "Ah, this sucks!" sufficed. On the other hand, if my friend had wanted to complain about something not immediately relevant, they would know that they probably need to introduce it explicitly before complaining about it. "Ah, I just remembered traffic on the ride home is going to be awful! This sucks!" or the like. From a Klingon perspective, that's where constructions like 'e' or ngoDvam come in handy.
This is what I'm getting at. Obviously, an unstated third-person subject or object is not guaranteed to refer to the previous statement, and I don't think there should be a rule to that effect. My argument is that, when Klingon speakers are trying to figure out the intended referent from context, "the previous sentence" is going to be considered as a possibility long before something discussed three hours ago, or something entirely unrelated. The point of trying to find canon citations was to support the idea that Klingons also have "the previous statement" in their mental category of immediate referents. Of course, there are other referents that would probably be considered first, like explicit third-person nouns, or something the speaker is pointing at. But I think "the previous statement" is much closer to the "explicit third-person nouns" end of the relevance spectrum than it is to the "Voldemort's name" end of the spectrum.
If mayqel starts a conversation by saying to me, bIvoqbe', 'ej muSuj, how will I deduce what the subject of muSuj is? It's not referring to a third-person thing or person mentioned earlier in the sentence, because there are none, and there are no earlier sentences in our conversation to look back to. It's not referring to a third-person thing he's indicating physically, because this is the Internet and we both know I can't see if he's pointing at something. What's something else immediately relevant he could be referring to? Well, the thing he just said. It makes sense that the fact that I don't trust could be something that disturbs him, and the fact that the sentences are connected with 'ej suggests at least some rhetorical connection. So I'll go with that. Yes, it's possible that he's disturbed by (say) the signs that Voldemort has returned, and that's what the subject of muSuj refers to, and for some reason he expressed his concerns in conjunction with an unrelated thought. But I know that participants in conversations try to say things that are obviously relevant (unless Maltz has some information on Klingon conversational maxims he hasn't been asked about), so it's probably not Voldemort.
va, tIqchoHpu' QInvam...
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On 3/29/2019 8:55 AM, Will Martin wrote:
Meanwhile, if someone said {bIvoqbe’, ‘ej muSuj}, to be honest, I’d interpret that as the Star Wars line “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” and I’d probably immediately fall to the task of trying to say it more clearly. Then, I’d hit the same wall the original translator probably hit, lacking an appropriate term for “The Force”, since that is an abstract concept of a different fictional Universe.
That is indeed the line being translated. But whatever Vader means when he says the line, he doesn't mention faith in /what/ -- that's only understood contextually. Thus, using *voq* without specifying what is trusted is a better translation. As for saying it more clearly, in case you haven't seen it, I think my own *muSuj voqbe'ghachlIj* is the most... ah... faithful translation. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Mar 29, 2019, at 08:13, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote: As for saying it more clearly, in case you haven't seen it, I think my own muSuj voqbe'ghachlIj is the most... ah... faithful translation.
'a qatlh “SujtaH voqghach HutlhghachlIj 'e' vISam” jatlhlaHbe' vay'? (jIqIDba'. 'a ngoDvam SaSovnISbe'moH 'e' vItulbej. qabqu'ba' mu'tlheghqoqvetlh; loQ bIngan Hol rur. 'a Do'Ha' bIngan Hol qab law' mu'tlheghqoqvetlh qab puS.)
On 3/29/2019 10:11 AM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
'a qatlh “SujtaH voqghach HutlhghachlIj 'e' vISam” jatlhlaHbe' vay'?
(jIqIDba'. 'a ngoDvam SaSovnISbe'moH 'e' vItulbej. qabqu'ba' mu'tlheghqoqvetlh; loQ bIngan Hol rur. 'a Do'Ha' bIngan Hol qab law' mu'tlheghqoqvetlh qab puS.)
*jIH Sam lIj Hutlh voq Suj. * Speaking of which, here's how Bing translates the line: *va Hutlh vItu' Suj.* -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
charghwI':
I don’t admire myself for this. It makes me unpopular. It’s the thing that has repeatedly driven me to take a break and leave the list for extended periods in order to stop being this confrontational person that I really am not in any other context. The passion is inexplicable, and counterproductive.
jIHvaD, qay'be'; naHchu'ghach vItIv, net Sov. vaj yIvuS'eghQo' ! ghoHIv.. ghoHIvqu' jay' !!! For me it isn't a problem; after all I enjoy negativity. So don't restrain yourself ! Let us have it.. Let us have it real good !!! hahaha ~ m. qunen'oS I find distorting ca'non disturbing
On Mar 29, 2019, at 09:24, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
jIH Sam lIj Hutlh voq Suj.
tlhoS mu'emmoHpu' mu'tlheghvetlh. 'a nuqDaq 'oH “of”'e'? chaq mu'tlhegh naQ 'oHchugh Hoch mu', QaplaH. loQ ghuQ rur: jIH. Sam. lIj. Hutlh. voq. Suj.
Speaking of which, here's how Bing translates the line: va Hutlh vItu' Suj.
loQ mumer mu'tlhegh. qabqu'bej, mungDaj vIghovlaHbe'chu'mo', 'a mItbogh mu'mey puS lo'law'. lo'Ha'ba', 'a lo'…
At least this means that we don’t have to worry about normal people using Bing to figure out what we’re talking about when we’re writing in Klingon. By a long shot. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 29, 2019, at 10:24 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/29/2019 10:11 AM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
'a qatlh “SujtaH voqghach HutlhghachlIj 'e' vISam” jatlhlaHbe' vay'?
(jIqIDba'. 'a ngoDvam SaSovnISbe'moH 'e' vItulbej. qabqu'ba' mu'tlheghqoqvetlh; loQ bIngan Hol rur. 'a Do'Ha' bIngan Hol qab law' mu'tlheghqoqvetlh qab puS.) jIH Sam lIj Hutlh voq Suj.
Speaking of which, here's how Bing translates the line: va Hutlh vItu' Suj.
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On Mar 29, 2019, at 13:37, Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
At least this means that we don’t have to worry about normal people using Bing to figure out what we’re talking about when we’re writing in Klingon. By a long shot.
You seem to be implying that normal people don’t understand Klingon.
Implying? Implying that we are not normal? For the past couple decades I’ve been under the impression that Klingon speakers wear the badge of weirdness proudly. We are the bottommost rung on the geek ladder. We boldly go where no normal person has gone before (or would want to). We memorize a vocabulary far more vast than Elvish. We boast members who have proven they can do cartwheels while wearing a rubber forehead with wig, and high heels. We have sung Klingon barbershop quartets and performed Klingon renditions of “Who’s On First” and “Bring Out Yer Dead”. The Daily Show sent a representative who came to a qep’a’ and made fun of himself on camera because it was so much more challenging to do that than to take pot shots at weird people like us. Any AM radio DJ could ridicule us, but it takes a master comedian to sit among us at qep’a’ during a quiz game and jump up and down and wave his hand high, gesturing, “Pick me! Pick me!” while wearing a business suit. "No, sir. We are NOT normal people,” (spoken in the same tone as Worf, bellowing, “Captain, I protest! I am NOT a merry man!”) We are each far too interesting to be normal. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 29, 2019, at 2:56 PM, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
On Mar 29, 2019, at 13:37, Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
At least this means that we don’t have to worry about normal people using Bing to figure out what we’re talking about when we’re writing in Klingon. By a long shot.
You seem to be implying that normal people don’t understand Klingon. _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 3/29/2019 5:32 PM, Will Martin wrote:
We are the bottommost rung on the geek ladder.
I have one word for you: furries. http://www.smofbabe.net/geekchart.pdf -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Mar 29, 2019, at 19:32, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
That chart seems to be missing a box for “People Who Write Erotic Versions of Star Trek Where All the Characters Are Furries, Like Kirk is an Ocelot or Something, and They Put a Furry Version of Themselves as the Star of the Story, in the Original Klingon”
Okay, okay. We’re the SECOND lowest rung of the geek ladder. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 29, 2019, at 8:32 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/29/2019 5:32 PM, Will Martin wrote:
We are the bottommost rung on the geek ladder.
I have one word for you: furries.
http://www.smofbabe.net/geekchart.pdf
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
Since the norm for Klingon speakers isn’t normal, a normal person who speaks Klingon would be, by definition, weird, so they’d fit in just fine. Sent from my iPhone. Will
On Mar 29, 2019, at 10:47 PM, Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
Okay, okay. We’re the SECOND lowest rung of the geek ladder.
charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan
rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 29, 2019, at 8:32 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/29/2019 5:32 PM, Will Martin wrote: We are the bottommost rung on the geek ladder.
I have one word for you: furries.
http://www.smofbabe.net/geekchart.pdf
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________ 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
SuStel:
I have one word for you: furries. http://www.smofbabe.net/geekchart.pdf
qatlho' ! qatlho' ! qatlho'qu'qu'qu' ! QaQ ! 'IH ! pov ! povqu' ! povqu'chu' ! wa'chawvamvaD nav vImojmoHta', gho qoDDaq "trekkies who speak klingon" vIlanta', 'ej pa'wIj tlhoy'Daq navvam vIHuSta' ! hahaha ! ~ m. qunen'oS I find breaking ca'non rules disturbing
This thread has not had anything to do with verbs of measure for an awfully long time XD Where do non-Trekkies who hang out on the Klingon mailing list and read and compose messages by typing or copying words and sentences into boQwI' fit in? :-P -QISta' On Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 03:37 mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
SuStel:
I have one word for you: furries. http://www.smofbabe.net/geekchart.pdf
qatlho' ! qatlho' ! qatlho'qu'qu'qu' !
QaQ ! 'IH ! pov ! povqu' ! povqu'chu' !
wa'chawvamvaD nav vImojmoHta', gho qoDDaq "trekkies who speak klingon" vIlanta', 'ej pa'wIj tlhoy'Daq navvam vIHuSta' !
hahaha !
~ m. qunen'oS I find breaking ca'non rules disturbing _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 3/30/2019 8:04 PM, Christa Hansberry wrote:
Where do non-Trekkies who hang out on the Klingon mailing list and read and compose messages by typing or copying words and sentences into boQwI' fit in? :-P
"Trekkies who speak Klingon." -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
They don’t. Sent from my iPhone. charghwI’
On Mar 30, 2019, at 8:42 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/30/2019 8:04 PM, Christa Hansberry wrote: Where do non-Trekkies who hang out on the Klingon mailing list and read and compose messages by typing or copying words and sentences into boQwI' fit in? :-P
"Trekkies who speak Klingon."
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
“They” cannot conceive of non-Trekkies who speak Klingon, so anyone who does must be a Trekkie, and that’s where they’ll put you. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name From: Will Martin Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2019 10:36 AM To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] Verbs of measure They don’t. Sent from my iPhone. charghwI’
On Mar 30, 2019, at 8:42 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/30/2019 8:04 PM, Christa Hansberry wrote: Where do non-Trekkies who hang out on the Klingon mailing list and read and compose messages by typing or copying words and sentences into boQwI' fit in? :-P
"Trekkies who speak Klingon."
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________ 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
“They” cannot conceive of non-Trekkies who speak Klingon, so anyone who does must be a Trekkie, and that’s where they’ll put you. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name From: Will Martin Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2019 10:36 AM To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] Verbs of measure They don’t. Sent from my iPhone. charghwI’
On Mar 30, 2019, at 8:42 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/30/2019 8:04 PM, Christa Hansberry wrote: Where do non-Trekkies who hang out on the Klingon mailing list and read and compose messages by typing or copying words and sentences into boQwI' fit in? :-P
"Trekkies who speak Klingon."
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________ 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
On Mar 29, 2019, at 17:34, Alan Anderson <qunchuy@alcaco.net> wrote:
<motlh> <taQbe'> je tImISmoHQo'.
Does that actually work? I would expect it to be something like {nImISmoH <motlh> <taQbe'> je 'e' yIchaw'Qo'.} I didn’t think words should be capable of being the subject of {mIS}, which seems to be implied if they are the object of {mISmoH}.
On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 8:55 AM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
{HoS’a’ Hurgh Davoqbe’law’mo’, jIbelHa’.}
But that could mean “Because you don’t trust/believe in the significant power’s pickle...”. [sigh]
Well, unless the Klingon version of Star Wars has considerably more brine-soaked cucumbers than the Terran version, there's probably not much room for misinterpretation. Although Klingon Star Wars fans probably have joke t-shirts that have Darth Vader holding a pickle...
On Mar 29, 2019, at 10:35, nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 8:55 AM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote: {HoS’a’ Hurgh Davoqbe’law’mo’, jIbelHa’.}
But that could mean “Because you don’t trust/believe in the significant power’s pickle...”. [sigh]
Well, unless the Klingon version of Star Wars has considerably more brine-soaked cucumbers than the Terran version, there's probably not much room for misinterpretation. Although Klingon Star Wars fans probably have joke t-shirts that have Darth Vader holding a pickle...
Actually, Klingon Star Wars Fans made a parody movie called “logh moQ” which features as its primary antagonist a character named “mIv Hurgh” who wears a pickle on his head.
On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 12:03 PM Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
Actually, Klingon Star Wars Fans made a parody movie called “logh moQ” which features as its primary antagonist a character named “mIv Hurgh” who wears a pickle on his head.
*<lorgh jIH. loD bID, targh bID je jIH. jupna'wI' tlhIn jIH!>*
In my fantasies, I think of myself as defiant enough to use a Type 7 suffix on the main verb of a second sentence in a Sentence As Object construction… but in fact, when I’m writing and I’m faced with an opportunity to do this… I find some entirely different way to state what I was going to say that doesn’t involve SAO at all, especially since I think that overusing it is lazy. There are often other ways of saying things, especially when the temptation is to string out multiple SAOAOAOAO constructions. So, yes, I do accept the rules and follow them, but typically not by implying a missing Type 7 in SAO. More likely, I’ll just recast the whole thing and avoid the entire issue. Ditto for {-moH} ditransitives. I don’t have to break rules I don’t like. I can just go somewhere else and avoid the entire problem. For me, the whole point of writing in Klingon is to work within the limits and still come up with clear, meaningful expressions. I’ll make enough unintentional mistakes. I don’t need to make any intentional ones. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 27, 2019, at 1:43 PM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 1:07 PM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com <mailto:willmartin2@mac.com>> wrote: I mean, if you can just imagine a pronoun that can act as subject of the second sentence and represent the first sentence, why not just imagine a pronoun acting as object of the second sentence that represents the first sentence? Poof! No need for {‘e’} or {net}. Any sentence can just be invisibly represented by any unstated pronoun acting as subject or object in the following sentence.
You can already do that. For example, TKD: vIta'pu'be'. I didn't do it.
There's also this dialogue from ST6: https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2006/May/msg00201.html <https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2006/May/msg00201.html>
Chang: narghta'? narghta'. ([They have] Escaped.) Grokh: qay'be'. Daq SovlaHbe'taH qIrq. (Kirk cannot know the location of the peace conference.) {It does not matter ... Kirk cannot know the location.} Chang: DaSovbej'a'? bISuDrup'a'? (Are you sure? Will you take that chance?) {Are you sure [of that]? ... Are you willing to take that chance?}
DaSovbej'a' has an unstated pronoun as object, referring to Grokh's sentence. (Grokh's sentence also uses qay'be', with an unstated subject referring to Chang's earlier statement that Kirk and Spock had escaped.) Leaving out 'e' might cause confusion if there's something else in the context that might also work as a third-person subject, and the two sentences may feel less connected into a single thought, but it's not the end of the world if you leave it out.
So, I repeat, it is not ungrammatical. It is merely hideous. You can’t rely on your reader/listener to consistently realize, “OH, I GET IT. THAT UNSTATED SUBJECT OF THE SECOND VERB REPRESTENTS THE ENTIRE PREVIOUS SENTENCE. WHAT A GREAT IDEA? WHY DIDN’T OKRAND THINK OF THAT?
He did think of that, at least four times. I mentioned them in my earlier posts. I assume the reason he did not spell this out formally is because he didn't think he needed to explain to his audience how to use "it".
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On Tue, 26 Mar 2019 at 19:16, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
My problem is with the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}..
From the first time I heard it, I felt that something was off with that sentence; but I knew that since a specific person wrote it, and it appears in a star trek too, then no one was going to admit that there is something not quite right with that sentence.
That sentence was originally {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj!} It's precisely because people *did* point out that it may be a problem to use {-taH} and {-jaj} together that it was reinterpreted as two sentences. But also: {wo' ghawran DevtaHjaj!} (toast) Note that there's something like a century (someone else can do the math) between these political slogans. But clearly, whatever TKD says, at some point it became acceptable for the suffixes {-taH} and {-jaj} to be used together. It may even be that {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!} was re- or mis- interpreted as {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj!}, which was what made {-taHjaj} acceptable. -- De'vID
On 3/26/2019 5:33 PM, De'vID wrote:
But clearly, whatever TKD says, at some point it became acceptable for the suffixes {-taH} and {-jaj} to be used together. It may even be that {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!} was re- or mis- interpreted as {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj!}, which was what made {-taHjaj} acceptable.
Or it may be another example of common ungrammaticality. Nobody who thinks about it accepts it as grammatical, but not everybody is going to be thinking carefully about it. We can't go invalidating a rule in TKD because we have an example that contradicts it. People often point out the bit in TKD that says "when Klingon is actually spoken these rules are sometimes broken," but we must remember that it also says "What the rules represent, in other words, is what Klingon grammarians agree on as the 'best' Klingon." -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Tue, 26 Mar 2019 at 22:47, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/26/2019 5:33 PM, De'vID wrote:
But clearly, whatever TKD says, at some point it became acceptable for the suffixes {-taH} and {-jaj} to be used together. It may even be that {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!} was re- or mis- interpreted as {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj!}, which was what made {-taHjaj} acceptable.
Or it may be another example of common ungrammaticality. Nobody who thinks about it accepts it as grammatical, but not everybody is going to be thinking carefully about it. We can't go invalidating a rule in TKD because we have an example that contradicts it.
In KGT, the sentences {wo' ghawran DevtaHjaj} and {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} are used to illustrate the difference between toasts and statements simply indicating the speaker's desire. Those sentences are literally in the section of the book about divergence from standard grammar, and yet no mention was made of the unusualness of {-taH} and {-jaj} together. Okrand could've easily said that these suffixes are only used together in toasts and political slogans, or only in fossilised expressions, or in certain regions, or is considered ungrammatical but commonly heard, but didn't. Of course, what likely happened is that Okrand simply forgot the rule existed to begin with. Actually, the rule probably only exists in the first place because Okrand didn't completely think through the implications when he changed Klingon from having tense to having aspect. It obviously makes sense to prevent a suffix indicating a wish for something to happen in the future from being used with tense markers (past and present would be incompatible, and future would be redundant). OTOH, a wish that something continues to happen is perfectly sensible. People often point out the bit in TKD that says "when Klingon is
actually spoken these rules are sometimes broken," but we must remember that it also says "What the rules represent, in other words, is what Klingon grammarians agree on as the 'best' Klingon."
I said it was acceptable, not that it's best practice. If we accept the fiction that KGT simply describes Klingon as it's actually used, then it's hard to interpret the use of {-taH} and {-jaj} together, without being called out, in the section on variations in grammar other than as an indication that it's become unremarkable in the time of Gowron. It may be something that grammarians fume over, but {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} also seems to be something people normally say. (And really, are you going to go piss off Gowron by telling him his political slogan is ungrammatical?) -- De'vID
On Mar 27, 2019, at 05:54, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
If we accept the fiction that KGT simply describes Klingon as it's actually used, then it's hard to interpret the use of {-taH} and {-jaj} together, without being called out, in the section on variations in grammar other than as an indication that it's become unremarkable in the time of Gowron. It may be something that grammarians fume over, but {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} also seems to be something people normally say.
Knowing now that {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!} was originally intended to be {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj!}, it actually makes a lot more sense with the TKD-grammar-violating combination of {-taH} and {-jaj}. The rule is still there obviously, but I found your analysis on why it was possibly a mistake interesting, and I don’t think that anybody could argue that the meaning of {-taH} combined with {-jaj} would be unclear, if somebody uses those suffixes together either because they forgot the rule, never knew about it, or are intentionally violating it. The description of the restriction in TKD seems to support your guess that the implications of replacing tense with aspect weren’t fully thought through:
This suffix is used to express a desire or wish on the part of the speaker that something take place in the future. When it is used, there is never a Type 7 aspect suffix.
If we re-read “Type 7 aspect suffix” as “Type 7 tense suffix”, imagining that the Type 7 suffixes originally indicated tense, then the rule makes perfect sense for the reasons you describe. This suffix is explicitly for wishing that something takes place in the future, so there’s no need to indicate tense on top of that. The way it actually is written, though, seems a bit arbitrary (not that rules of grammar have any obligation to seem non-arbitrary). Contrast with the restriction that {-vIS} must always be used with {-taH}. This one does look like it’s actually grounded in sensible principles with aspect, not tense, specifically in mind. Naturally, for something to happen while something else is happening, that something else needs to be happening on a continuous basis. Yet this rule gets broken, too, in lines like {QamvIS Hegh qaq law' torvIS yIn qaq puS}. (IIUC this was because the line got edited down to assist actors that were struggling with the Klingon, so that doesn’t really seem like a good example to emulate, whereas contrasting {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} with {wo' ghawran DevtaHjaj} in KGT to illustrate how verb-final toast syntax works had no production reason to ignore established grammar rules about allowed suffix combinations.)
While the case in point may not be an instance of this happening, you should be aware that often rules about when you can’t use a particular suffix originated when for some reason a line in a movie obviously SHOULD have had a particular suffix, but the movie went out without it, so there needs to be grammar to explain why it was missing. In this case, Okrand invents a rule saying you can never use that suffix (because a canon instance forgot to use this suffix when it really should have been there), so now the mistake makes sense. This is why you aren’t supposed to use a Type 7 suffix in the second verb in Sentence As Object constructions. And this is why I sometimes intentionally break this rule because there is no real language-related reason that you can’t. It was a rule created in order to explain what would have otherwise been a mistake in canon, but hey, languages change, right? So, maybe that rule will eventually go away… and then we can write things a little more clearly without having to follow a rule that exists because of a flubbed movie subtitle… I do respect that we’re supposed to pretend that there is some other mysterious reason that this is disallowed, since we are all supposed to be living in the fictionalized world where that movie subtitle was actually right… … but maybe I come from some other Klingon planet or region that speaks a dialect that is exactly like the Empiror’s Klingon, except that in our {Sep}, we can use a Type 7 suffix on the second verb of an SAO construction… … Yeah. That’s the ticket... charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 27, 2019, at 10:12 AM, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
On Mar 27, 2019, at 05:54, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
If we accept the fiction that KGT simply describes Klingon as it's actually used, then it's hard to interpret the use of {-taH} and {-jaj} together, without being called out, in the section on variations in grammar other than as an indication that it's become unremarkable in the time of Gowron. It may be something that grammarians fume over, but {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} also seems to be something people normally say.
Knowing now that {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!} was originally intended to be {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj!}, it actually makes a lot more sense with the TKD-grammar-violating combination of {-taH} and {-jaj}. The rule is still there obviously, but I found your analysis on why it was possibly a mistake interesting, and I don’t think that anybody could argue that the meaning of {-taH} combined with {-jaj} would be unclear, if somebody uses those suffixes together either because they forgot the rule, never knew about it, or are intentionally violating it.
The description of the restriction in TKD seems to support your guess that the implications of replacing tense with aspect weren’t fully thought through:
This suffix is used to express a desire or wish on the part of the speaker that something take place in the future. When it is used, there is never a Type 7 aspect suffix.
If we re-read “Type 7 aspect suffix” as “Type 7 tense suffix”, imagining that the Type 7 suffixes originally indicated tense, then the rule makes perfect sense for the reasons you describe. This suffix is explicitly for wishing that something takes place in the future, so there’s no need to indicate tense on top of that. The way it actually is written, though, seems a bit arbitrary (not that rules of grammar have any obligation to seem non-arbitrary).
Contrast with the restriction that {-vIS} must always be used with {-taH}. This one does look like it’s actually grounded in sensible principles with aspect, not tense, specifically in mind. Naturally, for something to happen while something else is happening, that something else needs to be happening on a continuous basis. Yet this rule gets broken, too, in lines like {QamvIS Hegh qaq law' torvIS yIn qaq puS}. (IIUC this was because the line got edited down to assist actors that were struggling with the Klingon, so that doesn’t really seem like a good example to emulate, whereas contrasting {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} with {wo' ghawran DevtaHjaj} in KGT to illustrate how verb-final toast syntax works had no production reason to ignore established grammar rules about allowed suffix combinations.) _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
aaaand THAT brings up the whole topic of prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar… Is it that the prescriptive rule holds and people violate it now and then, or is it that the language is changing and the rules haven’t caught up with the change yet? charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Mar 26, 2019, at 5:47 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/26/2019 5:33 PM, De'vID wrote:
But clearly, whatever TKD says, at some point it became acceptable for the suffixes {-taH} and {-jaj} to be used together. It may even be that {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!} was re- or mis- interpreted as {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj!}, which was what made {-taHjaj} acceptable.
Or it may be another example of common ungrammaticality. Nobody who thinks about it accepts it as grammatical, but not everybody is going to be thinking carefully about it. We can't go invalidating a rule in TKD because we have an example that contradicts it.
People often point out the bit in TKD that says "when Klingon is actually spoken these rules are sometimes broken," but we must remember that it also says "What the rules represent, in other words, is what Klingon grammarians agree on as the 'best' Klingon."
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On Mar 26, 2019, at 12:47, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 3/26/2019 10:26 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
But doesn't this reasoning mean that the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}, is wrong too ? Isn't the {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj!}, actually {tlhIngan maH! taHjaj 'e'!} ?
I know that it is blasphemous to dare and question something which has been celebrated as a feat of linguistic ingenuity.. I really do. But, - holy sith ! -, I'm sure as hell, that if a mere mortal had come up with this phrase, he would have been executed on the spot. tlhIngan maH taHjaj is (a) a slogan, and (b) not canonical. As a slogan, it's not going to be careful to ensure everyone knows what the antecedent of its elided pronouns are. As a non-canonical sentence, it's not a data point in what can and cannot be said.
Once in a while, I think to myself “hey, it could also be parsed as {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj}!”. Then I remember that {-jaj} isn’t supposed to be combined with an aspect suffix (even though it sometimes apparently is). Then I forget again, and the cycle starts anew.
On 3/26/2019 5:08 PM, Daniel Dadap wrote:
*tlhIngan maH taHjaj* is (a) a slogan, and (b) not canonical. As a slogan, it's not going to be careful to ensure everyone knows what the antecedent of its elided pronouns are. As a non-canonical sentence, it's not a data point in what can and cannot be said.
Once in a while, I think to myself “hey, it could also be parsed as {tlhIngan maHtaHjaj}!”. Then I remember that {-jaj} isn’t supposed to be combined with an aspect suffix (even though it sometimes apparently is). Then I forget again, and the cycle starts anew.
HevetlhDaq maw'chu'ghach tu'lu'. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 9:23 AM SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
No, but I didn't say he can't say his sentence because Klingon pronouns can't be used without an antecedent. Indeed, I didn't say he can't say that sentence. He was pushing the boundary of what was acceptable, because he claimed his proposed pronoun *'oH* was referring to an antecedent *ngoDvam* that wasn't present in the sentence, but what he was doing was functionally equivalent to using *'e'* as a subject, which definitely *isn't* allowed.
If you have to say it this way, just state *ngoDvam* outright and you'll have a much stronger sentence.
I'm not sure Klingon is quite so strict. There are examples where an unspecified third-person subject is taken to be a previous sentence or previously-mentioned situation. For instance, there's the TKD phrase *Do'Ha'*, translated as "that is unfortunate" in the useful phrases list. With your stricter interpretation, it would probably have to be *Do'Ha' ghu'vetlh* or *Do'Ha' wanI'vetlh*. (I'm sure there are other examples, but it's not easy to search for them...)
On 3/26/2019 11:24 AM, nIqolay Q wrote:
On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 9:23 AM SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name <mailto:sustel@trimboli.name>> wrote:
No, but I didn't say he can't say his sentence because Klingon pronouns can't be used without an antecedent. Indeed, I didn't say he can't say that sentence. He was pushing the boundary of what was acceptable, because he claimed his proposed pronoun *'oH* was referring to an antecedent *ngoDvam* that wasn't present in the sentence, but what he was doing was functionally equivalent to using *'e'* as a subject, which definitely /isn't/ allowed.
If you have to say it this way, just state *ngoDvam* outright and you'll have a much stronger sentence.
I'm not sure Klingon is quite so strict.
I'm not being strict. I've said more than once now that it's grammatical, but not necessarily the best sentence you can make. mayqel asked if he could say something, and I said yes, but you may want to consider such-and-such. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
participants (10)
-
Alan Anderson -
Christa Hansberry -
Daniel Dadap -
De'vID -
DloraH -
Lieven L. Litaer -
mayqel qunen'oS -
nIqolay Q -
SuStel -
Will Martin