tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 16 08:53:58 1994
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Re: Word used by Marnen
- From: [email protected] (Nick NICHOLAS)
- Subject: Re: Word used by Marnen
- Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 13:52:16 EDT
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "Mark E. Shoulson" at Feb 16, 94 6:19 pm
Hu'tegh! nuq ja' Mark E. Shoulson jay'?
Aaaaargh! Ok, I can't keep pledges. I have no honour. Childish thing to have
anyway. (I'm of Cretan descent; I'm actually *familiar* with how this 'honour'
stuff works in real life.) I'm still not going to bother with more than three
messages a week. Thesis and all.
=Now, there *is* some ambiguity between "a great warrior knows when he has
=finished speaking" and "When does a great warrior know he has finished
=speaking?", namely, whether the "ghorgh" applies to the main clause or the
=initial subordinate one. Bummer, huh.
Um, actually, while ambiguity is omnipresent and acceptable in Klingon,
it isn't present here:
ghorgh jatlh rIntaH vaj 'e' Sov vaj
vs.
jatlh rIntaH vaj, ghorgh 'e' Sov vaj? (She has spoken --- when does the warrior
know this?)
The ambiguity Kevin is hinting at still exists, but because the second
sentence exists, I don't see it as a problem. Default interpretation and
all that.
=deal with it. We have the same problem with relative clauses as objects
=and "-vaD" or "-Daq" or "-mo'" words at the front of them: "DujDaq puq
=DaqIppu'bogh vIlegh" could mean "I see the child which you hit on the ship"
=or "on the ship, I see the child which you hit" (i.e. the seeing or hitting
=may have happened on the ship). We cope.
Although there's a third interpretation, "I see the ship where you hit the
child", which we reject. Incidentally, in the fine print of TKD, the
first translation is wrong, since the "head" is not "before or after" the
"relative clause". Since, however, Okrand was probably simply trying to
describe those languages in which the head is *inside* the relative
clause (embedded), I certainly hope noone pays any attention to the letter
of TKD, when its meaning is obvious. The alternative, I feel, which would
even forbid *adverbs* in relative clauses, is just silly.
Dammit, I wish Okrand would occasionally just say what he meant, even if
it did mean using jargon. But we've been through all that before.
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nick Nicholas. The Nonce and Future Linguist. University of Melbourne.
[email protected]
"Henry Squirrel was thirsty. He walked over to the river bank where his good
friend Bill Bird was sitting. Henry slipped and fell in the river. Gravity
drowned." --- TALE-SPIN Story Generator, James Meehan, Yale AI Lab, 1975.