tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 12 08:45:17 2010

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Re: suffixes -lu'wI'

Andrà MÃller ([email protected]) 

2010/2/12 David Trimboli <[email protected]>
> > From: André Müller <[email protected]>
> > It seems that the main problem here is caused by our different analyses:
> you
> > are judging from the lables and Okrand's descriptions, I am judging from
> > what kind of sentences the language provides. Both is perfectly valid. So
> > either you go with Okrand and say that {-lu'} marks that the subject as
> > indefinite, plus, it causes that the prefixes to switch their indicated
> > roles (subject to object and vice versa). Then {-wI'} is clearly
> impossible.
> > Or you go for the alternative analysis: {-lu'} marks the subject as
> > indefinite, then works like a normal passive (turning the object into the
> > subject) which however allows the (indefinite) agent be marked as the
> direct
> > object. Then it causes a switch in word order moving the subject to
> object
> > position in the phrase. Then {-wI'} would be possible.
>
> If you're trying to analyze the language without paying attention to
> Okrand's explanations, how do you come to the conclusion that {-lu'}
> creates a passive formâ??except by making the assumption that a possible
> passive English translation requires a passive Klingon sentence?
>
>
Through the translations provided by Okrand. See the example on page 39 of
TKD: {Daqawlu'}, which is translated as "you are remembered" â?? I'm not
trying to cram passive into the {-lu'} morpheme and I explicitely said that.
But the meaning overlaps with the passive in many languages, although it's
not the same, so it's a logical assumption to go from {Daqawlu'} to "you are
being remembered [by someone]", as this matches exactly the roles that the
prefix shows. Then the only weird thing is the word order.



> > Both theories work. I now see that my theory is slightly more complex,
>
> As far as I can tell, your theory requires the introduction of new rules
> that are not explained or evidenced anywhere.
>
>
Again, I am not assuming new rules, I am judging from what (canonical)
Klingon sentences we have and what they mean. I know how {-lu'} works,
because I know the outcome, but not what happens "inside" the construction,
in the deep structure. So I am not inventing anything, I just draw logical
conclusions in a point where two analyses are possible.



> In any case, that {-lu'} indicates an indefinite subject is not a
> theory; it is an axiom. Okrand tells us so. You can't ignore that.
>
>
It's a claim, and because Klingon is an artificial language, we should rely
on Okrand's claims. That's obviously a point where conlanging and
linguistics differ â?? you have to accept the analysis of the inventor, even
though (if it were a natural language) another interpretation would make
more sense. So far I'm not even claiming that my claim is more logical than
Okrand's. Both seem, in a way, logically deducted from the sentences we
have.

Let me sum up the point I am trying to make:
We have sentences with and without {-lu'} and we have their translations.
They are from our Klingon corpus, so to speak. We have to assume these
sentences are all grammatical. We are not to criticize them, they are
practically like "from a native speaker" of Klingon.
Okrand gave an interpretation of how {-lu'} works, he says it marks that the
subject is indefinite and that the roles of the personal prefix switch
places. That means that for Okrand, the word order is what indicates the
syntactic/grammatical subject and object.
I forgot about his claim about the prefixes and assumed that {-lu'} marks
the subject as indefinite and then switches around the roles of subject and
object in general and adds a passive reading to the verb. The prefixes act
completely normally, like they always do, but the word order has changed.
With the examples so far considered, both Okrand's and my explanation work
and produce the same result. If a canonical sentence shows up which has
{-lu'wI'} inside, this would indicate that my interpretation would be the
correct one. Negative evidence (i.e. the fact that there are no such
phrases) doesn't falsify my theory though. Because Klingon is a constructed
language and all canonical sentences come from Marc Okrand by definition,
we're not likely to run into a sentence with {-lu'wI'}, as Okrand wouldn't
allow it.

That means that the fact that Okrand invented Klingon is the only reason my
theory is wrong. I can live with that, because I can accept that constructed
languages are to be analyzed differently than natural ones (because the
constructor is always right). My theory is wrong cause Okrand's claims HAVE
to be accepted. No problem with that.

Do you agree on that?
I had the impression that you think my theory wouldn't work at all and
couldn't produce the {-lu'} sentences we already have. Obviously I'm not the
only person who interpreted Klingon differently than Marc Okrand (cf. Roger
Cheesbro). Both analyses are possible and Okrand's has to be right be
definition.



> > It's very untypical for a language to switch
> > around the roles in portmanteau prefixes as such, but it's quite usual to
> > switch one's word order around in some sentence-types. I know that
> judgement
> > comes from terran languages and might not apply at all to Klingon.
>
> Klingon does a lot of things that real-world natural languages do not
> do. It does these things on purpose.
>
>
Thanks for the news. That's exactly what I said in this paragraph. That
doesn't mean these rules *couldn't* apply for Klingon, though. And if the
outcome is the same, why not assume an alternative interpretation which
produces the exact same results with about the same ammount (or even less)
of presuppositions?

- André

P.S.: This is perhaps a symptom of being a linguist: don't trust other
linguists' interpretations too easily. Analyze it for yourself first and be
sceptical about other people's claims. I am sorry that my questions turned
out to be provocative in the end, even though I didn't want that. That's the
problem with us linguists: we want to treat Klingon as if it were a natural
language described by a field worker. That's why some of us caused trouble
even though we don't necessarily see Klingon through Terran goggles.

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