tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 04 09:34:55 2007

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Re: Purpose Clauses (was Re: "conjunction"?)

...Paul ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

I'd like to sum up the discussion around purpose clauses, in a 
non-partisan way.  So, until you see me say "Opinion" at the bottom, 
assume any mistakes I make until then are just mistakes... :)

The question at hand is that we have a handful of canon translations that 
appear to have purpose clauses that do not appear to have the appropriate 
pronomial prefix, or the appropriate indefinite subject suffix (/-lu'/), 
to match with the translation.  These are:

Dochvetlh DIlmeH Huch 'ar DaneH (TKD)
ngongmeH wa' DujDaq nuHmey nISbe'bogh So'wI' jomlu'pu' (S33)
tlhutlhmeH HIq ngeb qaq law' bIQ qaq puS (TKW)

Although not used in a complete sentence, we also have:

pe'meH taj (KGT)

Did I miss any examples?

It has been *proposed* (by QeS 'utlh, a Grammarian) that:

"IMHO, {-meH}-clauses modifying nouns may, but don't need to, take 
pronominal prefixes. {-meH}-clauses modifying verbs, on the other hand, 
must take pronominal prefixes, hence examples like {Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam} 
in which the expected {-lu'} is present; I couldn't find any example of a 
{-meH}-clause modifying a verb that could conceivably be analysed as 
having no pronominal prefixes."

This is not specifically supported in canon (ie. there is no Okrandian 
material that says this is to be the case; this has been proposed as a 
solution to the question of "what's going on in those previous 
examploes?")

The original reason for this discussion was because Voragh proposed we 
term the concept of "conjunction" with /rarmeH mu'/

OPINION:

While the theory that purpose clauses on nouns have an implied indefinite 
subject (when all else is lacking) is great for *explaining* the canon -- 
although I'd then argue that the /tlhutlhmeH/ example might lay claim that 
the implications are broader than just for purpose noun clauses -- I have 
trouble using this hypothesis for *writing* new Klingon.

So for example, if we had a canon example, /rarmeH mu' yIlo'/ "Use a 
conjunction", the hypothesis would hold.  But since *we* are writing this, 
I'm not sure we can assume the hypothesis is correct, and thus we should 
be sure we use the proper pronomial prefix or indefinite subject suffix, 
/rarlu'meH mu' yIlo'/.

However, since it is unwieldy to define a term that then changes based on 
usage, it seems more... convenient (for lack of a better term) to craft a 
noun phrase that does NOT change on usage, such as /rarbogh mu'/ -- which 
remains the same if you're saying /rarbogh mu' yIlo'/ or /mu'tlhegh 
DararmeH rarbogh mu' Dalo'nIS/...

That's my argument in a nutshell, all circling back to the original point 
-- what do we call a conjunction?  :)

...Paul

          ** ...Paul, [email protected], Insane Engineer **
   ** Visit Project Galactic Guide http://www.galactic-guide.com/ **
     "Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them"
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