tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 21 08:03:05 2004

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Re: Probability

Teresh000 ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

ghItlh de'vid:

> 
> 
> 
> ter'eS:
> >>Someone was wondering last week how to express probability,
> >>as in "There's a ninety-nine percent chance of rain today."
> 
> jIH ghaH. ;)

maj.

> 
> ter'eS:
> >>I don't think anyone really answered, but I've been musing on
> >>it ever since.  How about:
> >>
> >>   DaHjaj HutmaH Hut [vatlhvI'] DuH 'oH SISmeH DuH'e'.

Did I leave out {vatlhvI'}? Oops!

[...]
>the
> phrase <SISmeH DuH> "possibility [for the purpose of/in order
> to] rain" strikes me as odd.  I just don't see "rain" as the
> purpose or goal of "possibility".
> 
> How about <'eb> instead of <DuH>?
> 

I don't get the sense of "probability" from {'eb}.

> Voragh:
> >These seem a bit wordy.  Looking at our single example of {vatlhvI'} 
> >"percent":
> >
> >   cha'maHvagh vatlhvI' Hong;  QIt yIghoS!
> >   Slow to one quarter impulse power. ST5
> >   (lit. "Twenty-five percent impulse power; proceed slowly!")
> 

I didn't see Voragh's reply the first time, so I don't know everything
he wrote, but I don't see the relevance of this example.  The use of
{vatlhvI'} with a noun isn't in question.  To me the question of
expressing probability is one of lexicon (what is the Klingon word
for it?) and of grammar (how do you fit the main verb into the
phrase equivalent to "an X-percent probability of (verb)").

Actually, I was discussing this with my son, and we both eventually
agreed that the whole concept of assigning a probability to an
event is very strange.  If I say, "There's a 99% chance of rain", I
really mean that if I could somehow recreate the exact conditions of
this moment, 99 times out of 100, it would rain.  But that's obviously
an impossibility; you can never exactly recreate any set of atmospheric
conditions.  So assigning a probability to an event is totally hypothetical,
and maybe not even something Klingons would do.  What you are really doing 
is giving your degree of certainty that your prediction will come true.
So, instead of the above examples, how about

ghaytan SIS; HutmaH Hut vatlhvI' DIch vIghaj.

In more technical uses, it may be shortened:

yuQ paw' SIbDoH; vaghmaH Soch DIch.

-- ter'eS

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