tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 15 11:11:48 2000
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RE: Deixis and direction
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Trimboli [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 3:27 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Deixis and direction
...
> That said, I still don't see any real difference in grammar between the
> following sentences:
>
> puq QupvaD betleH nob HoD.
> puq Qupmo' betleH nob HoD.
>
> We don't have one sentence with a syntactically significant
> indirect object
> and one with a syntactically significant reason. We have two
> sentences with
> "header" noun phrases.
I do find this interesting. I can definitely see this as one valid
interpretation among other valid interpretations. Meanwhile, I do see some
potential examples that might call this into question.
puq QupvaD lurDech ngo'mo' betleH nob HoD.
puq tInvaD puq machvaD je lurDech ngo'mo' betleH nob HoD.
So, why am I driven to use {je} in the second example, but not the first? If
the first two are just head nouns sharing the same peer role with the verb,
shouldn't they have {je}? Shouldn't all instances of multiple head nouns be
joined with a conjunction? And if there is some mysterious, unexplained
reasons why we can have multiple head nouns without a conjunction, then why
should we have one if we have multiple head nouns using the same Type 5 noun
suffix?
The point here is that all head nouns are not grammatical peers. Each one
defines a different relationship with the verb. If there are multiple nouns
with the same relationship to the verb (like the list constructing a plural
subject or a plural object), then those nouns require a conjunction. If you
have a subject and an object, they don't need to be joined by a conjunction
because their grammatical relationship with the verb is different. You only
need conjunctions for groups of nouns that are serving the same grammatical
relationship with the verb. Multiple nouns with the same Type 5 noun suffix
have a common grammatical/syntactical function, and so they need a
conjunction joining them to form a plural noun set participating in that
common relationship with the verb.
Am I saying anything here that you find interesting? Does it affect anything
that you have been believing up to this point, at least enough to cause you
to reconsider? I'm sure are canon examples of this sort of conjunctions,
though I don't wish to take the time to find them right now and I doubt that
you doubt this, so I don't feel it is really necessary. Let me know if you
disagree.
> jIjatlh:
> > > > I'm saying that the rules
> > > > don't prohibit it, and that it would explain a thing or two. It
> > > > may not be
> > > > illegal to put /bIQtIqvo'/ in the subject position for the
> verb /tuj/,
> for
> > > > example, but the resulting sentence /tuj bIQtIqvo'/ is semantically
> > > > meaningless, at least to Klingons, and thus it does not appear in
> > > > the canon.
>
> jatlh HomDoq:
> > hmmm, it seems like you dimiss the possibility that this has
> > ANY meaning, including "The origin of the river is hot.",
> > which, I guess, answers my question above with "No"...
>
> Not exactly. I say it probably doesn't have a valid MEANING, but its
> GRAMMAR is not prohibited by the known rules.
This is only true if you ignore that Okrand has explained in TKD that Type 5
suffixes are syntactic markers, that subject and object are indicated by
location, but OTHER grammatical funtions are indicated by suffix.
> > I'm not sure in how far your so-called "in-ness" or "at-ness"
> > differs from the object's location as in my *{qab QongDaq} above.
>
> I'm not sure how well I can explain that.
>
> Captain Krankor has claimed that /mIvDaq yIH/ is an acceptable translation
> of "cat in the hat" (disregarding the obvious change of situation). I
> believe he says it can't be interpreted as a noun-noun
> construction because
> the noun-noun construction prohibits using a Type 5 suffix on the first
> noun. Some have claimed that this is valid because it is part of
> a sentence
> fragment.
This latter explanation is the only one I can understand. Despite the
controversial example on the Bird-of-Prey poster, we have been given no
explanation of how a locative could be used to modify a noun instead of a
verb. The explanation we've been given is that locatives give the setting
for the action of the verb. It can't be part of a noun phrase.
> I tend to reject these arguments. People who use /qIb lengwI'vaD tlhIngan
> Hol/ aren't using a sentence fragment; they're trying to
> literally translate
> "Klingon for the Galactic Traveler." The proper Klingon phrase would be
> /qIb lengwI' tlhIngan Hol/, using a noun-noun construction.
Agreed. This is definitely a superior translation.
> And like this
> example, /mIvDaq yIH/ really IS trying to be a noun-noun construction, no
> matter how much Krankor wants to deny it. This is a genitive
> construction,
> with /mIvDaq/ "in-the-helmet" as a single concept modifying /yIH/
> "tribble."
>
> If one can see how this is really a genitive construction, and therefore a
> noun-noun, and therefore illegal according to TKD, one has probably seen
> what I mean by the difference between a thing's location and its "in-ness"
> or "at-ness." Krankor really wants his phrase to mean
> "in-the-hat cat," as
> opposed to some other kind of cat.
Agreed.
> Here's another way to think about it. If you saw /qab
> QongDaqvo'/ and were
> told that you had to give it a meaning, ignoring whether or not it is
> allowed, what would you come up with? I'd see it as
> "From-the-bed is bad."
> Whatever that means. /QongDaqvo'/ is not a thing or place like
> /QongDaqDaq/
> is, and is probably easier to grasp as a single concept.
I believe that this is why Okrand gave us words like mung, Daq, etc. These
words fulfill the meaning you seek without violating the grammar by trying
to use a locative as if it were some other grammatical function.
> SuStel
> Stardate 527.9
charghwI'
Stardate 538.6