tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 20 21:03:25 1994
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Re: Interesting construction
PLEEEEASE don't let this "drive" you off the list again. I'm
trying to accept your suggestions, and I'm not just a naysayer.
I actually LIKED your use of {meH} where I would have otherwise
used {'e'}, after all. It is not like I'm closed minded about
everything.
According to [email protected]:
>
> >> There will be those who criticize {jInIDbogh}, but I would ask you to
> >> consider the construction as a whole first.
>
> I wish to reiterate this very point, because I think that thruout this post,
> you had been disregarding it.
I read this point and considered it. That does not mean I was
able to accept it. Being unable to accept an idea that fails to
ring true to my understanding of the language does not mean I
am closed minded, which is what your remark suggests.
> >The problem here is that you are not trying the freighter.
> >{-bogh} belongs to the verb that ties the freighter to the main
> >verb.
My point in saying this is that {-bogh} will be added to only
one verb. That one verb needs to be the one verb that, in your
words, shares the noun with the main verb. In this case, {nID}
fails to do that.
> >... What you REALLY want to do is
> >nominalize the {-meH} purpose clause, which Klingon will not
> >let you do.
>
> Let's go back to the concept as expressed in English. "The freighter which I
> try to attack escapes." You see, the English structure maps directly to the
> Klingon. In other words, in the English you are not "trying the freighter"
> either. I am not saying that {Haw' tongDuj vIHIvmeH jInIDbogh} is a literal
> translation from the English. I did not extrapolate it from the English
> structure. It's a functionalism. I look at {HIvmeH nID} as one verbal unit
> (maybe you don't, but that's ok)...
I think this is the reason I can't accept this. {HIvmeH nID} is
not one verbal unit. It is a dependent verb and a main verb.
You are trying to stack dependencies in a way that there is no
indication Klingon can handle. In other words, escape is the
main verb, and try is dependent upon it, and attack is
dependent upon THAT. In Klingon, we have only evidence of a two
level heirarchy of verbal dependency. We have a main verb and a
dependent verb. There can be more than one dependent verb, but
all of them depend upon the single main verb. One dependent
clause does not place its dependency on yet another dependent
clause.
If I'm wrong on this, I'd appreciate an example to dispell me
from my illusion of an understanding of this aspect of the
language. If I'm right on this, then there is no way to justify
placing {-bogh} on {jInID}. Just because it would conveniently
serve the function of turning a few English words into Klingon
words doesn't mean it results in a sentence that is meaningful
in Klingon. I'm more concerned about building meaningful
Klingon literature than I am in convenience of translation from
English to Klingon.
Meanwhile, you have taken on a massive task to translate
Hamlet. The gravity of this mission is bound to wear on you,
and devices which can ease this task increase in value as you
plunge more deeply into the project. It is only natural for you
to REALLY WANT easy ways to turn complex English constructions
into Klingon text. I empathize with that.
That still doesn't keep me from my original mission, which is
to learn to create meaningful language within the confines of
the Klingon grammar, without extraordinary liberties that ease
the task of moving fixed text from English to Klingon at the
expense of violating the essential structure of the language.
> Look at the whole structure again and then
> look at how it maps to the English; and again, remember I'm not saying that I
> extrapolated this from the English, because I didn't.
>
> >Basically, you are trying to open a bottle with a sledge
> >hammer. You need a better tool. (Try your betleH.) Recast it to
> >form three sentences:
>
> >Haw' tongDuj. 'oH vIHIvmeH jInIDpu'. HIvqa' veqlargh.
>
> It works this time, but not always. I have at least one example from Hamlet
> 5.1 where I had to use a similar structure, and it couldn't be recasted in
> the way you describe here without oversimplification.
Sorry you seem to have missed my joke. I hope the burden of our
large project has not left you humorless...
> Also remember that this is a functionalism. By that I mean that it is not a
> truly logical construction. Pragmatics or context, as ~mark has pointed out,
> play a big part of interpretation of such functionalistic constructions. That
> is what a functionalism is. Not necessarily logical, but pragmatic. Basically
> that can be said of all natural languages.
I'm not just sitting deaf to your explanations. I hear what you
are saying and cannot make the leap from generic statements
about functionalism to this specific construction of "The ship,
which I tried to attack, escaped."
> Also, regarding your comments on relative clauses, restrictive vs,
> non-restrictive. I have also noticed a severe lack of non-restrictive {-bogh}
> clauses. Plus the incapability of Klingon to grammatically distinguish
> restrictive vs. non-restrictive seems to stem from the syntactic nature of
> {-bogh} clauses.
That's what I was trying to get to when I tied {-bogh} in with
other Type 9 suffixes. Grammatically, restrictive relative
clauses fit the pattern of other Type 9 suffixes better than
non-restrictive relative clauses. I'd probably tend to render
most non-restrictive clauses as separate sentences, much in the
spirit of your splitting them out in your original example.
> As for the extrapolation of ~mark's making {'e'} the head noun of the
> relative clause, perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough in my last post on
> that. I don't approve of *{'e''e'} or any suffix on {'e'}. I am notorious for
> being taken far too seriously when I start getting imaginative and speculate
> on grammatical transformations and the like. That was one reason I got
> 'driven' off the list last time. But I'll try to play it down. Plus I'm still
> working on Hamlet, so I won't have too much list posting time, either.
Then perhaps *I* missed YOUR joke. If that's true, then I
apologize for my absent humor. You deserve good humor, jupwI'.
> As you were.
>
> >> Guido
>
> >charghwI'
>
> Guido
>
charghwI'