tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 05 14:59:01 1996

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Re: Stephen's introduction


On Thu, 27 Jun 1996 15:22:38 -0700 [email protected] 
wrote:

> In a message dated 96-06-27 01:09:14 EDT, peHruS 
wrote:
> 
> >I, peHruS, prefer {*Stephen* 'oH pongwIj'e'} because it translates back
> >literally as "As for my name, it is Stephen."  I prefer putting the emphasis
> >that Klingon's {-'e'} carries on {pong}.  The other way would translate "As
> >for Stephen, it is my name."

I wanted to argue with this, saying that the {-'e'} is a 
formality attached to the verb "to be" and it didn't have 
anything to do with "As for X...", but I looked it up in 
TKD (imagine that!) and it's right there in black and 
white.

Even with that, I don't see a huge difference between "As 
for my name, it is Stephen," and "As for Stephen, it is my 
name." They both work for me, depending on context.

Another way of viewing it is to note where the emphasis is. 
"My name is STEPHEN (not George or Fred)." Or, "Stephen is 
my NAME (not my address or my species).

Note that these could just as easily have been stated, 
"STEPHAN (not George or Fred) is my name," and "My NAME 
(not my address or my species) is Stephan."  

Face it. In English, the verb "to be" is weird. It is just 
so ubiquitous we don't notice its strangeness. Sometimes it 
is reversable. Sometimes it is not. Okrand started out 
wanting to ban it from Klingon entirely and then added this 
pronoun thing later, mostly to make a lot of lines he was 
told to write easier to write.

And no, I didn't make that up or imagine it. I had one 
decent conversation with Okrand many years ago and in it he 
very explicitly (and excitely) talked about how he liked 
the idea of making a language that did not use a 
separate verb for "to be" at all. Its meaning was to be 
absorbed in all those descriptive verbs, and the pronoun 
thing was adopted for practical reasons.

> I have often wondered if the pronouns can be thought of in the following way:
> 
> We can write a sentence like {pongwIj 'oH} "It is my name."  In the sentence
> {pongwIj 'oH *Stephen*'e'}, we see the same first two words.  I suggest that
> this can be thought of as two sentences, or at least one and a half.
>  Consider the sentence as such:
> 
> pongwIj 'oH . . . . . . . . . *Stephen*'e'

I think this is going a bridge too far. We simply don't 
have to do this. Stephen is the subject. If it were not the 
subject, it would go at the beginning of the sentence like 
all other nouns which are neither subject or object. The 
only noun which follows the main verb is the subject.

Usually, the pronoun is the subject, as in {tlhIngan maH}, 
but if the subject is an explicit noun, it follows the 
pronoun and gets the {-'e'} added. Okay? 
 
> "It is my name. . . . I'm talking about 'Stephen.'"  The first two words make
> up a regular sentence using a pronoun in Klingon, and the third word explains
> what the sentence is referring to.

That's not altogether inaccurate, but it really is subject 
of the verb "to be". It gets translated as subject of the 
verb "to be", unless you use the alternative translation 
"As for X..." which Okrand does allow in TKD. I personally 
suspect he is making a point here about the English meaning 
of the verb "to be" in this kind of setting. We are talking 
about a three way equivalency among "my name", "it" and 
"Stephen". 
 
> If this interpretation is correct, then I agree with peHruS: {*Stephen* 'oH
> pongwIj'e'} would make a better translation.  "It is 'Stephen.' .  . . I'm
> referring to my name."  Just like the {'e'} construction in Klingon, the
> sentence is actually considered two sentences.

Here I disagree. I don't see it at all gibberish to say, 
"As for Stephan, it is my name," or in your terminology, 
"It is my name ... I'm referring to Stephen."

Consider this model:

A man sits in front of three name tags. George, Fred, 
Stephen. He points to the "Stephen" tag and says, {pongwIj 
'oH *Stephen*'e'.} The emphasis is on Stephen.

Three men sit at a table. The bartender holds up the phone 
and says there's a call for somebody named "Stephen". One 
of the men at the table yells out, {Stephen 'oH 
pongwIj'e'.} The emphasis is on my name. It is MY name, not 
HIS name. 
 
Also consider the canon {veQDuj 'oH DujlIj'e'.} "Your ship 
is a garbage scow." If we were to say, "Your name is 
Stephen," modeled on this, we'd use {Stephen 'oH 
ponglIj'e'.} That would lead to your introducing yourself 
as {Stephen 'oH pongwIj'e'.}

Which is exactly what peHruS suggested he liked best...

> The only problem with this idea is the set of canonical sentences which go
> along the lines of {Sojvetlh 'oH nuq'e'} 

What canon examples? Remind me of the source.

> (a problem unless Klingon nouns
> switch places as in English "What is your name?" "My name is Stephen.")  

Bad example. You could as easily answer, "Stephen is my 
name," or the question could have been "Your name is what?" 
especially with an emphasis on the last word. 

> In
> this case, the translation seems to be something like "It is that food . . .
> What is?"  Whereas I'd prefer to see "What is it . . . I mean that food?"
>  {nuq 'oH Sojvetlh'e'}  I believe there is a canon example of {nuq} coming
> before the pronoun, but I can't remember what it is.  I mean, once you
> established the context, you could say, {nuq 'oH}.

There have been arguments about this sort of thing which 
did not seem to reach any final conclusions, particularly 
on the questions {'Iv SoH} vs. {SoH 'Iv}. Krankor commented 
on new canon we got on the audiotapes which seemed reversed 
from what he considered to be correct.

I personally consider either construction to be valid. Who 
among us would not understand either one? Of course, I 
guess {SoH 'Iv} should at least be {SoH 'Iv'e'}, but I 
don't think that is what we were given... 
 
> One minor problem (which I don't really worry about) is the {Dochvam nuq}
> sort of sentences which crop up a lot.  Not much to do with this post,
> however.

I don't consider those to be sentences at all. Just two 
nouns planted next to each other. (Okay, one of them is 
chuvmey acting as noun).
 
> Any comments on this would be welcome.  ghoyajchu''a'?
 
> SuStel
> Hovjaj 96489.7

charghwI'

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