tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 27 16:44:11 1994
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ghuy'Do tlhoQ
ghItlh charghwI''e':
>According to [email protected]:
>...
>> tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhqu'taHvIS wa' tera'ngan mu' vISovbe' 'e' vItlhojDI'
>> vIjatlh:
>>
>> <whatever Klingon word> vIQummeH nuq vIjatlh?
>So, we presume that {Qum} is transitive, do we?
I'll have something to say on that in a moment. But first...
>...
>> >> If you do not wish a thing heard; do not say it.
>> >> Doch Qoylu' DaneHbe'chugh yIjatlhQo'
>[deleted stuff about how nice it is to state the implied {vaj}]
>> <vaj> lo'lu'DI' loQ qaqlaw' mu'tlhlegh. 'a <vaj> lo'lu'be'chugh vaj
>> lughqu'ba'taH.
>In Your Humble Opinion.
Whoa! Stop! Are you understanding me correctly? (WARNING: obvious hormone
rage seeping into my brain and slowly unnerving me; i'll work on toning it
down, but it's VERY FRUSTRATING sometimes) Must I translate?! Ok then: Yes,
it is often just better to the overall stylistic sound of the sentence to put
{vaj} after a {-chugh} clause. That was Will's idea in the first place. Will,
sometimes I think you argue for argument's sake.
The second part of my sentence said that omitting {vaj} is not wrong. That's
no opinion. That's cold hard fact.
>> [thing] DaQummeH {SoQ}'e' chaq yIlo'.
>"speech, lecture, address"? I don't know. Sounds like a bit of
>a stretch to me. I still vote for {joS}.
But the thing doesn't necessarily have to be a rumor; it's just any spoken
thing. What about {QIch}? Or, even better, {mu'mey}?
>> >charghwI'
>>
>> I don't really agree with the use of {-lu'} here. The reason why is not
>> grammatically-, but culturally-based. My explanation as to why is rather
>> rather lengthy, but here goes:
>... [deleted lengthy description]
>> I myself restrict my usage of {-lu'} to cases where the subject could be a
>> broad range of possibilities:
>Isn't that exactly what the original text suggested? "If you do
>not wish something to be heard..." as in "If you do not want
>anybody to hear something..." How is that different from your
>acceptable situation for {-lu'}?
toH vIyajHa'pu'. I read, "If you don't want a thing heard, don't say it," and
thought to myself, "Well, even if you don't want the thing to be heard, how
could you prevent its being heard by not saying it? when anyone else could
say it also, and thus make it heard, which would be against your wishes..."
Enough of this ambiguity. I'm going to get going on my long-procrastinated
plan of learning lojban. Ha ha. So long, Ambiguity! Ambiguity, thy name is
English!
ghItlhtaH ghaH:
>According to [email protected]:
>...
>> What's weird is hearing foreigners say things like " 'duckling' means
>> 'entje'." But Klingon has such a totally different structure. After some
>> careful thinking, I would guess that it goes like this:
>>
>> <nuH> luQummeH [weapon] lulo' tera'ngan?
>Am I the only person who feels uneasy about using {Qum} as a
>transitive verb? It seems especially ironic, coming from
>someone who dares the world to show him any language other than
>English which allows the same verb to be used either
>transitively or intransitively. maQumlaH'a'?
It's not ironic. You're not quite understanding me right. What I believe in
the way of transitivity is this: Verbs like {Dub}, whose English translation
in TKD is transitive or intransitive, should go only one way. {Dub} should
mean either "improve" as in "X improve -- X become better", OR "X imrove Y --
X cause Y to be better", but not both. Few, if any languages besides English
have verbs that could have both intransitive AND transitive meanings.
I believe that {Qum} means "communicate to". I've used it thus in
_vIlHem-tel_: {puqloD Qum HI'Hom} "The dictator wanna-be communicates to the
son". I also use it to mean "to communicate [the meaning of a word]" or
simply "mean/signify", whereas you use (or used to use, I might say) {Hech}
which really means "mean/*intend*".
I don't think that {Qum} is intransitive, but it could of course be used with
an objectless prefix when the object is indefinite. My opinion of {Qum}
should be acceptable, since {Qoch} is now taken by general consensus to mean
"agree with".
>...
>> BTW, the reason I shy away from using {chay'} and {qatlh} (in case you
hadn't
>> noticed) is because "how" and "why" are such vaguely definable terms in
>> English.
>I suspect that if Okrand wanted to differentiate between the
>two types of "how" and the two kinds of "why", he could have
>easily done so in the word list. While he borrowed from many
>different languages while building Klingon, I'm sure that one
>of those languages was English. If English is the only language
>on the planet with these ambiguous question words, then, gee,
>what a wonderful way to make Klingon unique! Just use that
>aspect of English, and you've made Klingon different from the
>vast majority of human languages!
I don't really think so. I think it was rather the same thing that Okrand did
in leaving his verbs unmarked for transitivity. You may be right, but whose
to say, except Okrand. He did the same thing with {-vam} and {-vetlh}. Even
other European languages don't always make those same distinctions. Why
couldn't there be three or four such distinctions? Why even make them at all?
Because they are that way in English? We have to expect some Englishy things
about Klingon, as its creator speaks it as a first language and all. It's
just me, not wanting Klingon to look anything at all like English. That's
all.
ghItlh Seqram'e':
>>in the world. I dare anyone to prove me wrong.
>Um, Welsh. OK, it's not common, but to say English is *unique* would be to
>exaggerate somewhat.
How do these verbs work in Welsh. Care to elaborate? I do know of languages
that sometimes lose their transitivity distinctions. Some of those spoken in
North Africa, for example. But they don't function the same as such verbs in
English, so they're irrelevant. They just become passive when an object is
not mentioned. That's more or less what English does, yes, but there are
other aspects to it that make it irrelevant. Maybe Welsh can offer us some
insight to the transitivity problem we have.
ghItlh Holtej'e':
>Most compounds Okrand lists in TKD involve a noun and a verb, so these
>I will disregard. Many of the compounds Okrand gives are in fact
>possessive, which is one interpretation of "of the." But there are some
>others, a few of which I'll point out. The thing to notice is, that when
>the N1-N2 construction is used (TKD 3.4), it's always possessive.
>If it's a compound noun (TKD 3.3.4), it's not necessarily possessive.
>---Compound Nouns---
>1. {'ejyo'waw'} starbase
>If we take compound nouns as N1-N2, this should be "military base of
>Starfleet."
>But that's not what it is; it's just a star base. If I were to coin
>{Hovwaw'}, would
>you think I meant "base of the star" (with the possessive interpretation)?
> Or
>just the base *on* the star?
You are concerning yourself too much with literal translations. "Starbase" is
an English idiom. You can't compare the Klingon N-N and compound directly
with the English possessive and compound constructions, because the two
languages' constructions are too different. You cannot justify such a
difference in Klingon N-N and compounds by interpreting {'ejyo'waw'} as
"military base of starfleet" when Okrand just translated it as "starbase".
Klingons are allowed to generalize the meanings of both the elements of this
compound when putting them together. I myself believe you are observing a
difference between N-N and compound just because the difference exists in
English. Please consider this idea, at least.
>2. {ro'qegh'Iwchab} rokeg blood pie
>A compound used in a compound. Looking first at {'Iwchab}, this
>can't possibly be a pie belonging to blood. It's a pie made
>from blood, like your "coat of many colors" above. Looking at
>the whole word, it's not a blood pie belonging to a rokeg, but
>a blood pie made of a rokeg.
If you look at this as a compound which is divided between {'Iw} and {chab},
it makes much more sense. It is a pie associated with Rokeg blood. This
doesn't support my point or anything; I just wanted to clarify that.
>3. {tepqengwI'} cargo carrier
>A compound of "cargo" and "carrier." But, the carrier does
>not belong to the cargo; it's not "cargo's carrier." It's not
>possessive.
You certainly can't justify this, because we have {woj choHwI'} and {Hergh
QaywI'}. According to your interpretation of what a N-N is, these must be
interpreted "transformer belonging to the radiation" and "transferal device
belonging to the medicine", resp.
>There are more examples, but I'll stop. The point here is, that
>compound nouns are not restricted to the possessive
>construction. I believe, however, that the N1-N2 construction
>is limited to a possessive interpretation.
I must conclude that compounds are simply shortenings of N-Ns due to frequent
usage, having no significant semantic distinction.
I interpret X-Y or XY to mean "Y associated with X". Klingon also makes no
alienability of possession distinction. That's another reason I consider the
N-N/compound distinction so hazy.
Anyhow, this argument is rather unproductive because no real semantic
ambiguity of even near-disastrous proportions will arise from this. The most
sensible meaning of a N-N/compound will emerge. {Hergh QaywI'} will only be
thought of as a "thing for transfering medicine (from a container to the
blood)" and not "a transferal device which the medicine owns" because the
latter is semantic garbage.
The Klingon N-N/compound is very similar to the lojban tanru/lujvo
compounding scheme, if you'd like to look into that. Sorry, lojbanists, for
potentially insulting your intellegences; I haven't really done extensive
study of lojban, but I'm getting there. Look for me roaming the lojban
community in the coming years, perhaps.
If anyone dislikes this way of replying, and wishes me to post all my replies
separately (which would annoy Krankor), please give me whatever feedback.
"Ambiguity, thy name is English."
Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos