tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 16 20:03:49 2000
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RE: Deixis and direction
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Anderson [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 1:31 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: Deixis and direction
>
>
> ja' charghwI':
> >[...]
> >It's like saying that, well, yes, it quacks like a duck and walks like a
> >duck, but it is really a very special kind of flying, swimming
> cow that can
> >only be used in settings appropriate for a duck.
>
> If I were to contrive an appropriate analogy from the other point of view,
> I'd say that it is merely a generic flying animal that happens to
> quack and
> waddle. Calling it a duck obscures its basic "flying animal"
> character and
> implies that it's something distinct from a flying animal instead of a
> variety of one. It's the fact that it quacks and waddles which lets it be
> used in settings where a quacking, waddling animal is required. The label
> of "duck" is useful to describe something which meets those requirements,
> but being labeled a duck doesn't take away the fact that it's still a
> flying animal.
>
> Putting a Type 5 noun suffix on a noun doesn't make it something
> other than
> a noun. Nouns can be used as subjects and objects.
Yes, they can. They can also be used as indirect objects/beneficiaries,
locatives, causes and topics and these functions are NOT the same as being
subject and objects and while subject object and time stamp are indicated by
position, these other functions are indicated by Type 5 suffixes.
> A careful reading of
> TKD yields only the fact that nouns used as something else
> *usually* end in
> a Type 5 suffix, with no explicit restriction on nouns with those suffixes
> being used as a subject or object.
Time stamps are the only known exception to nouns in a well-formed Klingon
sentence that are not subject, object or marked with Type 5 suffix. I'm sure
Okrand wanted to leave open potential for something he had not thought of
yet, but in all these years, he hasn't thought of anything yet.
Similarly, he has repeatedly talked about verbs that are "ditransitive" such
that they could take two direct objects. Have you ever seen one? I haven't.
Every time he actually dealt with verbs that were good candidates for this,
he converted one object to the indirect role via {-vaD}. He always wants to
leave himself room for future expansion. Meanwhile, we have to work with the
language as it is and deal with additional exceptions later.
> It's only the label "Syntactic marker"
> that makes us think they can never be used there.
I'm still amazed that you don't find this significant. Slack-jawed, in fact.
> But we know locatives
> fit as the object of some verbs because their meaning includes a locative
> concept, and it's not that big of a stretch to imagine *{jorwI'vo' vIDoH}
> working for a similar reason.
If Okrand reveals it as yet another exception, I openly accept it.
Meanwhile, {-vo'} really is a syntactic marker that generally specifies a
noun's gramatical function in a sentence. It does not merely affect the
noun's "meaning" in some mystical way that sustains a remarkable coincidence
to places where one would use a grammatical function to link the noun to the
verb.
> If we take away the "syntactic marker"
> label, we still never see a locative in the subject slot of a sentence for
> the simple reason that none of the verbs we know has a locative concept as
> its subject.
If it did, it would be a grammatical exception, just like {ghoS} is.
> But we can't ignore the label completely. As I have pointed out
> previously, Type 5 noun suffixes do have explicit characteristics
> that make
> them unlike the other four types. They get put on adjectival verbs, and
> they can't get used on the first noun of a noun-noun construction. So it
> seems that something about ducks *does* make them unsuitable for
> roles that
> only non-ducks may perform.
Exactly. Add that little thing about how strings of head nouns with
dissimilar Type 5 suffixes don't require conjunctions, but any two nouns
with the same Type 5 suffix suddenly DO call for a conjunction. The reason
for this is that in Klingon, a well-formed verb is a sentence, and no other
word has a place in a sentence except by the grammatical rule that
determines how that word relates to that verb. Subjects, objects and time
stamps relate to the main verb by position. Other nouns link to the verb
through Type 5 suffixes, each of which defines a syntactic role for the noun
in the sentence. Without the suffix, it has no role in the sentence. chuvmey
have their own rules determining their usage in a sentence, but for a noun,
it has to be subject, direct object, time stamp, or it needs a Type 5 noun
suffix to explain what it is doing in the sentence.
Except for the "focus" role of {-'e'} and the unusual relationship between
locatives and specific verbs of motion, these grammatical roles specified by
Type 5 suffixes are fundamentally incompatible with the roles of subject and
object. This is not an accident or a coincidence. Okrand simply chose to
specify certain roles by position and other roles by suffix. Syntactic
markers are used to mark syntactic/grammatical roles, not just modify
meaning as you and SuStel insist. In the word {mu'meymo'}, the {-mo'}
doesn't modify the meaning of the noun so much as it defines the role of
that noun in a sentence. You don't even need an example sentence to
recognize that. In {QanqorvaD}, the {-vaD} does not modify the meaning of
the name {Qanqor}. It instead defines the grammatical function of that noun
in a sentence. In {puchDaq}, the {-Daq} does not alter the meaning of the
noun. It defines the grammatical function of the word in a sentence. It so
happens that certain verbs of motion blend together in a specific and unique
way the roles of locative and direct object with specific and rather
idiomatic rules about its use relating to whether the verb prefix indicates
an object or not.
And {-'e'} is the red-headed stepchild of Type 5 noun suffixes, with a
schitzophrenic definition of Topic (which is a head-noun link to the verb
for a noun that is not subject or object) or Focus (which, by definition HAS
to be subject, object or time stamp because it leaves no place for any other
Type 5 noun suffix to define any other grammatical link to the verb). Then
add the weird idiom of it being added to the direct object in order to move
the adverbial closer to the verb.
Yes, some of this is weird and not very neat, just like a natural language.
Okrand, for the most part, did that on purpose, and where he did it
accidentally, he smiles and likes the result.
> -- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh
charghwI' 'utlh