tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 08 07:33:19 1995
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Re: jIlIH(')egh, etc.
>Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 15:00:29 -0800
>From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
>[I prefer {pongwIj 'oH ghunchu'wI''e'} over {ghunchu'wI' 'oH pongwIj'e'}]
>{ghunchu'wI' jIH} is worse. My true nature cannot be captured in
>a name. *I* am not {ghunchu'wI'}; {ghunchu'wI'} is merely my name.
>Of course, the fact that I indeed am one who programs perfectly does
>tend to muddle things a bit, but if that's what I wanted to say I'd
>use {jIghunchu'}. :-)
Ah. That runs into a question in just about all languages that have
anything like a copula (are there any that don't?) There are surely people
who'd feel strange saying "I'm Mark" for that very reason: I am no *name*,
I am a *person*. "Mark" is a label that refers to me. So I can say "Mark
is my name," but "I am Mark" sounds limiting. It's a use/mention problem.
Saying "Mark is my name" *mentions* "Mark" but doesn't use it. It's in
quotes, so to speak. To say "I am Mark" requires that one *use* the word,
and dereference it to find the person it's talking about. Most of the time
when we use names, we mean the person so named (e.g. "John says hello" is
all you need to say, not "The one called John says hello"---though I know
languages where this is not so, but they're special-purpose). So in most
speech, "Mark" equals "the one I have in mind who is called 'Mark'." By
that reasoning, "I am Mark" means "I am the one who is called 'Mark',"
which is pretty much what is intended.
Still, I can certainly see a reluctance to identify oneself with a name (as
opposed to identifying oneself BY a name), but that is not a grammatical
point, but rather a matter of personal or cultural taste and style and
perspective (and I don't think we know enough about Klingon culture to
guess at their attitude on it).
~mark