tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 28 08:09:02 1995
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Re: law'-puS in reverse?
According to R.B Franklin:
>
>
> On Thu, 27 Apr 1995, Alan Anderson wrote:
>
> > jatlh yoDtargh:
> > >It seems we have a way to say "X is more something than Y", but we don't
> > >have a way to say "X is less something than Y".
> >
> > Nor do we need one...
>
> The problem is not the implied difference between the two parties made by
> the comparison, but which person is the subject of the sentence. The
> party which is "more A" is always the subject.
My own approach to this is that the law'/puS construction does
not involve the concept of subject or object. This is why it is
the only construction which abandons the normal word order for
object, verb and subject. In essence, it is a sentence only in
the sense that an exclammation is a sentence. It is a
collection of words which do not fit in a normal sentence, so
it has to stand alone. It conveys meaning, but it does not
involve the normal sense of a subject performing an action on
an object.
Instead, it compares an unequal quality of two nouns. It is the
only construction which does this and this is all that it does.
It is unlike anything else in the langauge. I believe that it
is also one of the few elements in the language which really IS
specifically reflecting a specific human language. While I may
certainly be wrong (since I heard this as a rumor), there are
Native American languages which have only this sort of
structure for comparatives. I heard that Okrand found this
interesting enough that he tossed it into the language. THIS IS
ONLY A RUMOR AND MAY VERY WELL BE COMPLETELY WRONG.
Anyway, I hope this perspective on law'/puS can help those who
are having difficulty with its strangeness. It is not a
sentence in the normal sense. The qualitative verbs use no
prefix, even when one of the nouns being compared is in the
first or second person. The word sequence is inflexible. You
just have to meet this construction on its own terms.
> In your example, TKD
> indicates "your skill" is the subject of the sentence. But what if the
> topic of the conversation is "my skill". If "my skill" is the lesser
> skill in the comparison, we don't have a way to specifically refer to it.
Neither is the subject. The first noun is simply the noun with
more of the measurable quality than the second noun.
> This came up when I was trying to figure out how to translate
> "subgenius" for naQ'avwI'. I simply wanted to say, "these people are
> less intelligent than a genius". The problem is that I don't want to
> talk about geniuses, I want to refer to the people who are less
> intelligent, i.e. the "subgeniuses". The topic of my sentence is "these
> people" and not "geniuses".
To my perspective, law'/puS does not ordinarily point to either
noun. It points to the difference in quality between the two
nouns.
> My solution was simply to put {-'e'} on the topic. As far as I can tell
> it fits perfectly within the grammar rules and is perfectly understandable.
I would go a step farther and say that there would be times
when it might be appropriate to place the {'e'} on the first
noun as well. If you want to put emphasis on one of the two
nouns, I think {'e'} is the way to go. Meanwhile, I don't think
that either noun gets emphasis because of the word order.
Realize that when we translate law'/puS into English, we are
moving something which has no subject or object into a language
that DOES have a subject and an object when conveying the same
concept. I believe that this emphasis of one noun over the
other in a comparative is a trait of ENGLISH and NOT Klingon.
Since English requires this emphasis even when the original
Klingon statement did not convey one, it becomes easy to think
that the Klingon statement must have had that sense of subject
and object and that emphasis on the subject.
This is why I suspect that if you begin with an English
statement that really DOES place significance of focus on one
of the nouns instead of on the difference in quality between
the nouns, it becomes appropriate to use {-'e'} on that noun.
Meanwhile, for most law'/puS constructions, this would not be
the case. Exceptions probably should exist, however, and they
could be made for either the first or second noun.
Meanwhile, I don't think this really works for "subgenius"
because what you really want is a noun that can be used in a
larger sentence, and law'/puS can't fit into a larger sentence.
At best, it can be referenced to in a sentence-as-object
construction, but then the entire law'/puS construction is
referenced, once again, with a typical emphasis on the
difference in quality between the nouns.
Besides, the result would be ugly.
> (On the other hand, I am still rather fuzzy on the difference
> between the linguistic concepts of "focus" and "topic". Perhaps some
> linguist would be kind enough to explain it to me in layman's terms.)
I think that Okrand was unclear on this difference. Most
linguists here who are quite familiar with this difference have
spoken out critically that Okrand seems to use {-'e'} more
often to indicate emphasis rather than topic, even though he
uses the term "topicalizer" to describe the suffix. Most seemed
surprised that someone who otherwise seems to be so tight in
his terminology, striking an impressive balance between
accurate linguistics and presentation for the layperson, on
this specific term, he seems to be off base.
Mostly, in other languages, it seems that a topicalized noun is
set apart from the rest of the sentence, while in Klingon, the
topicalized noun must fit gramatically into the sentence. It is
positionally a normal noun in a sentence, requiring normal
justification for its position. It simply has the topicalizing
suffix on it (which essentially emphasizes the noun).
Take the example: "As for Krankor, his ship is too small." The
topic is Krankor, and he is not even represented at all in the
sentence. You can't say this in Klingon, because the only
logical place for "Krankor" in the sentence is a noun-noun
possessive structure with {Duj}, but we are explicitly
instructed that we can't place a Type 5 noun suffix on the
first noun in a noun-noun construction. The {-'e'} would have
to be placed on {Duj}, and then we lose the entire point of the
original sentence.
As is often the case, we need to abandon what initially appears
to be a standard recipe for a translation and recast.
Initially, we think "Krankor is the topic, so we use {-'e'},
but it doesn't really work here. I'd suggest: QanqorvaD machqu'
DujDaj.
> > -- ghunchu'wI
>
> yoDtargh
charghwI'
--
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"> | Get a grip.
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