tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 21 22:22:23 1994
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Re: open can of worms
According to [email protected]:
David Barron:
> >I looked through me AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE (4th ed) by
> >Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman and I cannot find out what You are
> >talking about jay'!
I doubt I did a clear job of describing this with examples.
Restrictive or limiting relative clauses differentiate the noun
from all other similar nouns. "The captain who abandons his
ship is a coward." Notice the clause is not set apart from the
rest of the sentence with commas because in this case, the
whole concept of cowardice is restricted to captains who
abandon their ships. We are limiting the set of captains to
those who abandon ships.
"Captain Krankor, who is a terrific poker player, has done more
to teach me how to speak Klingon than anybody else." Note the
commas. The relative clause DESCRIBES Krankor, but it has
nothing to do with his contributions to my learning to speak
Klingon. If there were more than one Krankor, adding the
description of him as card shark does not point you to the
RIGHT Krankor. It just tells you more about Krankor.
Guido #1:
> [...]
> >> I would also like to ask about how one would go about negating adverbials
> and
> >> clauses.
charghwI':
> >Very carefully, of course.
Guido #1:
> Ah, very intriguing answer.
charghwI':
Well, it was actually more of a dodge than an answer, but it
means, "We don't have a clear answer that can be applied as a
general rule. Instead, we wrestle creatively with each case, as
you have done in the following examples.
> Okrand did {batlh bIHeghbe'}, but without proper
> context, that implies that the death itself doesn't occur. I suppose there
> are always ways around doing clause negation:
The most intriguing part is that we lack sufficient cultural
context here to be sure that he didn't specifically INTEND to
imply that the death itself does not occur.
> "I didn't leave because my enemy was present", i.e., "I left (but) not
> because my enemy was present": {SaH jaghwI' 'ach mumejmoHbe'pu' ghu'vam}
Very cleverly and clearly stated.
Guido #1 to David Barron:
> You see, Dave (can I call you Dave, or should it be MrDave?), this all stems
> from something that I wondered about way back in my ancient pre-InterNet
> days, while I was still taking your correspondence course. I used the
> constuction {Hoch wISovbogh}. I doubt you remember at all.
>
> In short, I was (and still am) wondering if this meant "all that we know (and
> no more)" OR if it meant "all/everything, which we, being the ultra-sentients
> that we are, know". This distinction seems highly important in many cases.
> It's still a rare concept to portray, but still...
I can see where having a hormonally driven ego might bring one
to consider this latter interpretation... Stating "everything",
with the parenthetical, nonrestrictive description that, of
course, we know this thing, which is everything, does imply
omniscience.
> Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
>
> Before I go, one big BTW, two questions of expressiveness:
>
> 1) Is there or was there ever a liquid equivalent to "feed", and if not, how
> come?
For THAT matter, what equivalent exists in English? "Feed him
and give him something to drink!"? "Feed him and make him
drink!"? "Feed him, and let him drink!"? While I do see this as
an omission in Klingon, I think English has the same omission.
I also know of no single verb for this in French or sign
language. Okay, polyglots, there's a challenge for you. What
languages have a liquid equivalent to the verb "feed"?
Guido, you have once again uncovered an interesting gap in
language.
> 2) Why isn't there a counterpart to {-oy} which would indicate feelings of
> contempt or hatred?
I suspect that {-qoq} is often useful for this sentiment.
{vavqoqwI'} probably has less to do with the certainty of
genetic contribution than it does with expressing an interest in
withholding any reward that might be associated with the term
{vavwI'}, just as the term {vavoywI'} seeks to enhance it.
After all, while {vavoyqoqwI'} is grammatically valid, it is a
very strange word that would require unusual circumstances in
order to justify the term.
charghwI'