tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 10 12:14:54 1996
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partitives
- From: "d'Armond Speers" <[email protected]>
- Subject: partitives
- Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 15:15:15 -0400
Sorry for joining in late. Here's the story so far...
ghunchu'wI'vo':
> {"8mm" lo' pagh jupwI' Sum}. I intended it to mean
> "None of my nearby friends use 8mm [videotape]". The "none of my
> friends" meaning is what caught my eye today. Canonically, this might
> have to be interpreted more like "my zero friends", but I think the
> use of the type 4 noun suffix makes it ambiguous.
~markvo':
> I'm inclined to accept it for "none of my friends." No canon, no certainty
> in this. Just what my guts think.
It's something I'd like to know more about. Given the discussion in TKD and canon, we don't have any evidence to support "none of my friends," that I know of, the dubious /HochHom/ example notwithstanding. The question is, when Maltz hears this sentence, what kind of interpretation does he give to /pagh jupwI'/ and other such constructions. Not being able to ask him, it's a tough nut. We're not talking about syntax, we know it's a well-formed expression. The only illumination comes from examples in canon for which we have interpretations, where the interpretations show clearly a cardinal or presuppositional reading.
ghunchu'wI'vo':
> Is {cha' Dujchaj} "two of their ships" or "their two ships"? Both
> interpretations are sensible, so that doesn't help much.
Both interpretations are sensible sentences in English, but (I'd say) only one is currently supported as an interpretation of the Klingon.
> But try
> {Hoch qamDu'vam} -- "all of these feet" or "*these all feet"? This
> is a bit less ambiguous, and it seems to lend support to a possible
> partitive use of numbers before nouns.
I'd say that in this case, the one supported interpretation is less sensible; just because the other one is more sensible in English, doesn't mean it's more supported in Klingon. {{:)
> I'm not yet quite sure I understand the correct meaning of the terms
> "existential" and "presuppositional" in this context, but I think that
> type 4 noun suffixes are themselves presuppositional, and lend that
> attribute to the rest of the noun phrase. (I think I got that right,
> but I could easily have it completely backwards, or even upside down.)
Possessives aren't inherently presuppositional or cardinal (sorry, cardinal == existential). You can say both
my three ghosts cardinal
three of my ghosts presuppositional
Of course, my assertion is about how these can be interpreted... I'm suggesting that it's possible to interpret "my three ghosts" in a cardinal way, that is, without any formed assumptions about pre-existing or encompassing sets of ghosts. As a linguist, though, I'm quite capable of talking myself into any number of twisted interpetations. And whatever my views about the meaning of these English sentences are, we don't get anywhere with the Klingon this way. (It's definitely possible to interpret the first one in a presuppositional way; it's not possible to interpret the second one in a cardinal way).
It's perfectly possible that /wej qa'/ could be interpreted as "three of the ghosts", and therefore that /wej qa'wIj/ would be "three of my ghosts." I just don't believe we have any evidence to support this reading. My claim about the cardinality of Klingon quantifiers would suggest that it has to mean "my three ghosts", and with a cardinal reading to boot. If that reading isn't a possible one, then we have an ill-formed sentence, though not for syntactic reasons, but for semantic ones.
It's a pretty small point, I admit. And I suppose, it's very likely that one day we'll see canon from Okrand that uses some quantificational element, with a presuppositional interpretation in the translation, other than the bare numbers which we know are presuppositional (as in TKD p.57 (I believe)). I'm not married to the idea that *we just can't do it*; I'm just looking at the evidence we have so far. Besides, it'd be really neat if Klingon used a different syntax for these different interpretations. :)
--Holtej
---
d'Armond Speers, Research Engineer 301-548-4073
Thomson Technology Labs/Internet Lab 301-527-4080 (fax)
1375 Piccard Drive Suite 250 [email protected]
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