tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 04 16:20:46 1996
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Re: jaH
- From: Nick Nicholas <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: jaH
- Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 05:53:35 +1100
- Organization: Ling & App Ling, Uni of Melbourne
>Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 18:31:23 -0500 ()
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: jaH
>Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Now, *of course* I'm going to regret responding to this, particularly since
I haven't gotten into a flamewar on this list for long enough, and I do have
many and better things to do. Let this remind Will that this is what happens
when you post so abrasively: you provoke responses in kind.
>> I think you've just dug your own grave. Locative is, if anything, a more
>> general notion than directional; if we don't assume he means just
>> 'directional' here, but all locatives, stative and directional, then he
>> may
>> well be licencing "quS vIba'" --- something for which we have no precedent
>> whatsoever. For directionals, at least, we have the precedent of ghoS.
> This is weak, Nick. Just because you can apply a locative to a
> verb, that does not mean that the verb includes locative
> notions. "Orbit" implies a locative notion. "Sit" does not. Both
> can have locative associations, but the difference in English
> between "orbit" and "sit" strike me as quite similar to the
> difference between {ghoS} and {jaH}. You can say, "Earth orbits
> around the sun," but that just sounds like an awkward way to
> say, "Earth orbits the Sun." The object is more accurately a
> locative. Meanwhile, saying, "I sit in the chair," is not at all
> like "I sit the chair." This is the difference between a verb
> which includes a locative notion and one which does not.
Not that this will endear me to Will, but let me go over his head, and ask
the linguists on-line: is what Will trying to say that a location is an
adjunct of 'sit' but a complement of 'orbit'? Because it's just as much a
complement of 'go', so that can't be it. Or is he arguing for the primacy of
the direct object in the English verb as a criterion for being locational?
Because contingencies of syntax don't seem a particularly sound way of
defining a semantic category.
To Will: I just don't get it. Orbiting implies a location, but going doesn't.
Still sounds like sophistry. If what you really mean is "for lack of better
evidence, we must assume jaH behaves syntactically like 'go', because there
is no proposition in the gloss" -- then say so. (I think you do, eventually.)
And what I will tell you is that yes, it *probably* does, and the prudent way
to use Klingon at the moment is to assume it does, but this can be annulled
at a later date by Okrand, because it's not conclusive. But don't tell me
'go' "doesn't include a locative notion", because like most of Okrand's
attempts to boil down linguistic jargon, the wording is too vague to hang
anything like a 'definite' off --- much less something as eccentric as
'going' not including a locative notion!
>> So, it's natural for 'el to take a direct object, because it's associated
>> with an object as location, and it's natural for ghoS, but it's not
>> natural
>> for jaH, because the thing you go to is... not a location? And the
>> difference between jaH and ghoS is that what you approach... is a
>> location?
> Yep. You go TO an object.
In English.
> You don't just go an object.
In English. The point is, this is an accident of English; it doesn't have the
cosmic significance you seem to be attributing to it. (Cf. Esperanto, Old
French, Colloquial Greek...) Klingon *could* be different; it's prudent not
to assume it *is*, but it *could*.
> That's the difference, and Okrand does use prepositions in his
> definitions if they are implied in the verb.
So we have assumed --- remember, assumed. An example from German: my
dictionary glosses 'einsteigen' as 'get on'. It also glosses it as an
intransitive: you don't einstege something, you einstege *in* it. What
does this mean? That just because a dictionary has a verb + preposition
in a definition, it does not mean that the preposition is somehow
incorporated into the verb. It may just point to a similar preposition having
to be used with the verb in the target language. We have been imbuing Okrand
with foresight in including prepositions in the definitions, but there's a
very simple reason why he wouldn't say 'go to', but 'go': 'to' is the default
preposition built into 'go' in English. 'To go' means 'to go to', by default.
If Okrand *wasn't* imbuing the definitions with information on the case
structure of verbs, then it would never have occured to him to define jaH as
'go to'. And if he wasn't, we wouldn't have really noticed. If he intended
'el to be used as XDaq 'el, how could he *not* have defined 'el as "go in"?
Understand what I mean here? 'el can mean enter, and still require -Daq, and
be glossed as 'go in'. It is an entirely possible state.
Btw, out of curiosity: do you say X chol, or XDaq chol?
> So, you figure you can ignore the actual wording of the
> definitions of the words, eh? Just throw in a few prepositions
> wherever you consider them to be convenient.
My dear fellow, what I am trying to do is reconcile the definitions as given
with a rather broad-ranging rule given in the TKD grammar, and to point out
that the current assumption on how prepositions are used in the definitions
should be looked at more circumspectly. Oh, and this business of assuming
Klingon patterns just like English really gives me the shits, even if it
looks like it's true. Now, if you think I'm doing this to be capricious,
that's your problem...
> Why bother with
> Type 5 noun suffixes AT ALL? Just imply that any verb indicating
> any kind of motion or direction or location can be stretched to
> take an object which is locative.
Because the TKD doesn't say "all verbs whose meanings include locative
notions", but "a few verbs". Next question?
>> Of course, the langauge might become a little obtuse with all
>> this stretching to suit your personal preference, and of course,
>> why bother looking at anything Okrand has written? We can just
>> make stuff up and as long as WE all decide it is okay, there's
>> no need to bother the man, right? Whose language IS it ANYWAY,
>> right?
Don't let's get started on *that* topic again; you've already berated Qov
about it enough! I am stretching nothing; I am querying how general the TKD
grammar rule is. Canon *seems* to rule out X jaH --- if you can base
conclusions on two instances. Of course, when the man in question comes up
with tIv'eghtaH when he is bothered, I'd rather not bother him :-) --- but
yes, it's unfair to put him on the spot as giving canon on every casual
e-mail.
Still disappointed, though...
> Ah, I forget that you are psychic. [...]
Oh yeah, and cut the snide crap; it serves only to aggravate your
interlocutors, and doesn't leave you looking particularly good. And I have
not been the only recipient of this kind of thing here recently...
>> Now, understand that my own policy all along, too, has been to err on the
>> side of caution.
> [charghwI' stares in disbelief, mouth agape]
Oh, Christ on a Crutch, Will! I'm talking about my texts, and the editorial
policy I follow. I happen to think it's daft, for instance, that 'Ij be
intransitive, but after SuStel pointed out the controversy, there's no
transitive 'Ijmey left in the Much Ado text. Mark can readily testify to you
that I rarely insisted on grammatical forms that had the whiff of controversy
about them.
>> But if we bar jaH here, then we'll need canon to justify
>> the use of direct objects with Dech, 'el, and bav, which you regarded as
>> so obvious.
> Except of course for the canon which already exists in the
> plainly legible and comprehendable definitions in TKD...
Yeah, as clear as "DoH: back away from, back off" (of which the first, by
your criteria, implies X DoH, and the second Xvo' DoH), or "Haw': flee, get
out" (not "get out of"!) Problem is, there are also some cases which do like
the prepositions are doing something extra --- as in nej. The reason why a
fuss should be kicked about about these verbs, in particular, is that there's
a TKD grammar rule running around loose, and we don't know how to delimit it.
You have a theory on how to delimit it; all I can say is, the more I look at
it, the less I know...
> There are ambiguous definitions, like {vIH}, but {jaH} and
> {ghoS} are not ambiguous in terms of which one includes locative
> (prepositional) concepts and which one doesn't. {ghoS} clearly
> does. {jaH} clearly doesn't.
*Epiphany* Oh! Now I get it! You reckon a verb includes a locative concept if
it has a *preposition* in the English definition! Whereas, fool that I was, I
thought it included a locative concept if it had a locative complement
(which, in English, can be a direct object --- or not, but does have to be
implicit in all occurences of the verb.)
This is what you were yelling is right there in front of me? *Interesting*
way of looking at it, but I... Well, OK, I won't say anything snide; but we
obviously aren't talking in the same terms.
>> If we can truly be sure of nothing but
>> ghoS taking direct objects, then "yuQ vIbav" can no longer be considered
>> acceptable. (And I must say, I have problems with that use of bav anyway.)
> How exactly DO you use {bav}? I'm dying to see.
In Hamlet? yuQ vIbav. But what do I think the safest way to use it is? yuQDaq
jIbav, of course. What's opaque about that?
>> There is nothing (*nothing*) natural about following a course being direct
>> objects, and going to locations not.
> Except of course that in your own words right there you say,
> "following a course" (the preposition is implied in the verb)
> and "going TO locations" (the preposition needs to be explicit
> because the verb does not imply it). Let me introduce you to the
> helpful preposition.
Let me introduce *you*, my friend, to the fact that I happen to be speaking
English right now. Duh! Now let's try that sentence in Esperanto:
Estas nenio (*nenio*) natura pri tio, ke direktigxi laux kurso necesigas
direktan objekton, sed iri lokojn ne.
How very odd! Following the course came out with a preposition, but the
locations didn't!
Don't argue on the basis of English: you are not Proechel. Argue on the basis
of TKD alone. And remember that you can't import the full baggage of a
definitional word into Klingon: that's how 'pong' can end up meaning
'phone-call'...
>> The English rendering is not
>> decisive, because there isn't a word for "go" in English which *could*
> take a direct object.
> THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT. IF HE WANTED TO DEFINE IT IN SUCH A
> WAY THAT IT MEANT "GO TO" HE WOULD HAVE USED "APPROACH" INSTEAD
> OF "GO". HE CHOSE "GO" BECAUSE {jaH} DOES NOT INCLUDE
> LOCATIVE/PREPOSITIONAL ASSOCIATION WITH A DIRECT OBJECT.
The shouting just proves you're not listening. 'Approach' doesn't mean 'go'
at all; it's a much restricted meaning. Have another look at your dictionary.
There is no English verb which means 'go' (*really* means 'go', as in
unmarked verb of motion), and that could take a direct object. As for 'go to'
being the alternative, the fact that 'to' *never* shows up in one of these
verb+preposition couplings has me worried, and should have you worried too.
And no linguist can ever in good conscious write a dictionary without the
word 'go' (just 'go', whatever the language actually does) in it: it's how
they're trained. Okrand could not but have defined jaH as 'go': it doesn't
prove the TKD grammar rule doesn't apply.
>> As for me, I can't see anything less "abstract" about bav
>> being transitive than ghoS; and 'locative' is a superset of 'directional'
>> --- I was, if anything, being more conservative than the wording allows,
>> not less.
> Yet, you were being completely fictional in your choice of which
> verbs you chose to apply this concept to.
*sigh* Ah yes, the utter fiction of 'go' being a locative verb...
I'm not sure what we've learnt from this; here's my putative summary:
1. You should chill out.
2. I should chill out.
3. Okrand's gone and done it again.
4. The Esperanto/Lojban substrate in Klingon (Mark & Nick) looks like getting
struck down again.
5. You think prepositions signal locativity, and there is no issue.
6. I think prepositions are there because that's the way English came out of
the oven, and there is an issue.
> In real life, I'm happy to emend all the vIjaH in my text to 'oHDaq jIjaH;
> Good. You should. It is farther from correct than your earlier
> use of {-ghach} on verbs without suffixes. Those were highly
> marked, but not ungrammatical.
In real life, if my memory serves me correctly, I've asked SuStel to mention
this to Mark before we finalise the Much Ado text; that, and a couple of more
things.
>> but particularly since Mark had let me get away with it in Hamlet (then
>> again, we are both Esperantists and Lojbanists, and that explains why we
>> would see jaH as transitive; the real issue is, why should you not) ---
>> I'd rather have grounds more relative than this.
> Hamlet has {jaH} as a transitive verb?
> Say it isn't so! It looks so -- gasp -- so FOOLISH.
Yeah, well, you should have said something two years ago, shouldn't you. Mark
made a judgement call at the time; now, he probably wouldn't make the same
call now (though I'd love to hear what he thinks about this.) There's nothing
foolish about interpreting something as sloppy as TKD in different ways and
trying to make sense of it. What would be foolish is insisting once an error
is proven. But at the risk of appearing foolish :-) , I'm still not
convinced, for the reasons I've outlined.
--
O Roeschen Roth! Der Mensch liegt in tiefster Noth! Der Mensch liegt in
tiefster Pein! Je lieber moecht' ich im Himmel sein! --- _Urlicht_
[email protected] http://daemon.apana.org.au/~opoudjis
Nick NICHOLAS, PhD candidate, Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Melbourne