tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 20 14:22:40 1994

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Re: vay' and lu'

>Subject: Re: vay' and lu'
>Date: 94-12-20 12:11:17 EST
>From: [email protected] (William H. Martin)

>This is a point of contention. If you believe that {Xlu'} = {X
>vay'}, then you are right. My own suspicion is that, as the
>language was being developped, Okrand may have recognized that
>the grammar allowed objects to be optional, while subjects were
>necessary, and this created problems when translating English
>passive voice. 

I don't believe that Okrand felt it so necessary to make such correlations
between Klingon and English grammar in his development of the language. He
put in the qualification suffixes, tho English has nothing like them. English
also gets by without {-moH}, perfective, the topic marker, and sundry other
Klingon grammatical concepts. Meanwhile, Klingon gets by without a lot of
things that English relies heavily on, such as the copula, an instrumental,
an irrealis, a generic adverbializer ("-ly"). These things are best recasted
when going from one language to the other. Okrand even has stated that he
strove to create a "mindset" for Klingon, as natural languages all have.

>Since much of the language was developed while Okrand sought to
>express all the lines in the movies spoken by Klingons (even if
>they said it in English, because he knew that the director
>might change change his mind and ask for it to be redone in
>Klingon), and all the English lines spoken by Klingons in TOS
>television episodes (in English), it is certain that he had to
>deal with the English passive voice.

Indeed, the first usage of {-lu'} was {batlh Daqawlu'taH}.

>Meanwhile, trying to make the language more alien, he would
>certainly not want an exact equivalent to the passive voice.
>Still, I strongly suspect that {-lu'} was specifically designed
>to handle the translation of English passive voice, whether or
>not it was intended to be the exact equivalent of it. In
>English, the passive voice functions as a verb with an
>unspecified subject. In English, there is no equivalent
>grammatical construction to passive voice intended to address
>an unspecified object, so Okrand did not need to solve that
>problem with a grammatical construction.

I have already stated that I believe this to be irrelevant, since Okrand put
plenty other things into Klingon grammar that have nothing to do with English
grammar at all. But to the point: You state that you think Okrand put {-lu'}
in Klingon to deal with translation of the passive voice but at the same time
changed it a bit to make it more 'alien', if you will. However, I think it
should be pointed out that Okrand most likely got the idea for {-lu'} from a
little item some languages have (~mark can attest to this) called an
impersonal. ~mark dug up something from Basque about an impersonal that does
the same transformation deal that Klingon does when it flops (while still
looking for a better word than "flops") the prefix. That's also a bit
irrelevant, but I'm just saying that Okrand knew what he was doing with
{-lu'}: it overlaps passive in many semantic respects, but the {-lu'}
impersonal does not put emphasis on the object, the same way passive does.
Why should it? {-lu'} is an impersonal in every grammatical and semantic
regard, and we can conclude that, since it works exactly like impersonals in
other languages, and only bears some degree of resemblance to the passive
voice.

>This suspicion combines with that one weird TKD example
>{HeghqangmoHlu'pu'} = "it made him/her willing to die" to make
>me think that the {-lu'} moves the "willingness" implied by
>{-qang} from the subject "it" to the object "him/her" in a way
>that {HeghqangmoHpu' vay'} would not have done. In fact, I think
>that "it made him/her willing to die" is really better stated
>as "He/She was caused to be willing to die." The latter better
>expresses the sense of an unspecified subject, and it happens
>to be in the passive voice.

So you believe that in {HeghqangmoHlu'}, the meaning of {-qang} which
normally applies to the subject transfers to the object because of the
presence of {-lu'}. More likely it is the {-moH} which transfers this
meaning. And I will demonstrate this further.

{HeghqangmoH} could be interpreted two different ways, depending on context:
"cause to be willing to die" and "be willing to cause to die." The latter
would be *{HeghmoHqang}, however that's ungrammatical since the suffix order
is rigid. Both meanings are equally useful and pragmatic, and context can do
a fine job of sorting them out, as I've noticed in Hamlet (remember what I
said to you about practical usages in translations, charghwI'? Well, this is
it.) Anyways, we mustn't base an assumption that {-lu'} transfers the meaning
of {-qang} the object based only on one canonical example that could be
interpreted two different ways.

I will explain the way I understand {-lu'}. I hope you will recognize where
my or your error in reasoning lies so that we can both straighten out our
lines of thought. In other words, I'm not saying you're wrong, but just hear
me out.

{Xlu'} equals {X vay'}
   [Even you've stated this, charghwI']

Any intransitive verb with {-lu'} must be interpreted as
"someone/something/anyone/anything Xs." Therefore, any transitive verb used
with {-lu'} in the same fashion should be interpreted the same way. Therefore
{Soplu'} means "someone/etc. eats" and NOT necessarily "it is eaten,"
otherwise I'd have to ask, where does the "it" come from in your
interpretation?

If {Xlu'} does indeed equal {X vay'}, then {Xqanglu'} must equal {Xqang
vay'}, right? But according to you, this is not the case. It is a
contradiction of sorts. I'm not bashing you, I just wish to point out your
logical fallacy. I'm not dishing a blow to you either. You're not a really
linguistic-minded person, but no one resents that. We all have our different
interests, so don't get all in a frazzle over this. (Frazzle?)

The canonical example {HeghqangmoHlu'} does not *fully* support your belief
about {-qang} and {-lu'} because it *might* be the {-moH} that's transfering
the meaning of {-qang} to the object. It is not a definitive basis for your
belief.

>Of course, only Okrand knows for sure, and so far, he is not
talking.

Only because no one's asked him.

> \___
> o_/ \
> <\__,\
>  ">   | Get a grip.
>   `   |

Guidooo o  o   o    o     o      o       o        o         o














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