tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 11 19:20:52 1996

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RE: usage of Hoch and latlh



> Glen's response to Mark Shoulson and d'Ammond Speers:

My name is d'Armond, if you please.  Or Holtej.  {{:)

This response is quite thorough, and it's obvious that it's the product of 
thoughtful consideration.  However, it also contains half-truths, critical 
ommisions, and outright errors.  Let's see what Glen has for us today.

> The most notorious misuse of <<tlhIngan Hol>> since the <<-ghach>> debate 
was
> settled (It's still not settled in my opinion as I see a lot of bad 
<<-ghach>>
> constructions out there) is the placing of <<Hoch>>,  <<bID>>,  and 
<<latlh>>
> in NOUN-NOUN (N-N) constructions.  All three of these MUST PRECEDE the 
nouns
> modified and not follow it.  The issue of partitivity is not dealt with 
under
> that name, but it IS explained in TKD.  The problems of interpretation I 
see
> by Klingonists is their failure to understand parts of speech as they 
apply to
> <<tlhIngan Hol>>.

Okay, let's see.  [As for /-ghach/, whether you see bad constructions or 
not is not germane to Okrand's having provided us more information about 
its use.]

> Although Okrand refers to only three parts of speech:  <<DIpmey>>,
> <<wotmey<<, and <<chuvmey>>, you cannot simply look something up in the 
word
> lists to see which of the three categories the word in question falls 
under
> and then automatically know how to use it.  You must study the text of 
the
> grammatical explanations and the examples given.

Fine.  I think that's a pretty good description of what we do here on this 
list.

> The first MISCONCEPTION is that numbers ARE NOT nouns, because they are 
listed
> in the chuvmey section.  Although numbers in every language fall into a
> special category, Klingon numbers are either NOUNS or ADVERBS (TKD 5.2, 
pp
> 54-55).

Um, in Klingon, numbers are numbers, chuvmey, and, quoting TKD 5.s, pp 
54-55, "numbers are USED AS nouns" (my emphasis).  It does not say that 
numbers are nouns.  It says they are used as nouns.  They also have other 
uses, which, studying the text of the grammatical explanations and the 
examples given, is clear.  I think I am correct in labelling numbers as 
chuvmey, since they are listed in TKD 5, "Other Kinds of Words", which 
Okrand calls /chuvmey/.   I'll give plenty of examples of how numbers are 
numbers and not simply nouns in the discussion below.

> A number plus a noun is a de facto N-N construction and must be
> treated as such.  We know that the expression <<pagh tlhIngan means zero
> Klingons, no Klingons OR non of the Klingons, i.e., partitive.

Okay, let's see if I follow you.  number + noun is N-N, and must be treated 
as such.  Quoting TKD 3.4, p. 30-31, "the translation of two nouns combined 
in this way, say N1-N2 (that is, noun #1 followed by noun #2), would be N2 
of the N1."  Okay, N2 of the N1.  /pagh Klingon/.  Klingon(s) of the zero. 
 I think I have that right.  Note that it is *not* "zero of the 
Klingon(s)."  Treating number + noun as N-N does not yield the translation 
which we know that number + noun has, so I have additional reason for 
believing that numbers are not simply nouns (other than them being 
discussed in the /chuvmey/ section, and not in the noun section).   They do 
not behave like nouns in N-N constructions.  They behave like numbers, 
which is not surprising to me.

This not withstanding, I do find something of note in TKD 5.2.  Nowhere in 
there are we given an example of number + noun, where the translation 
includes "of the."  We are, though, given /mulegh cha'/, "two (of them) see 
me."  (And /wa' yIHoH/, the analysis of which is identical).  Now, is this 
a number acting as a noun, or is this a number with the subject pronoun 
omitted?  Is it really /mulegh cha'/, or is it /mulegh cha' (chaH)/?  Given 
the text of the grammatical explanation, it looks like it's a number acting 
as a noun in the subject position, not as /cha' (chaH)/.  "They (numbers) 
may stand alone as subjects or objects...."  So, it looks like the two 
examples that Glen is using to extrapolate an analysis of partitives are 
not, in fact, num + noun, but numbers standing alone as nouns.

Everywhere in TKD we have examples of num + noun, we are given translations 
like "four children", not "four of the children."  Nowhere are we given a 
number + noun with a partitive interpretation.

> Since pagh
> tlhIngan>> means "NONE of the Klingons", it stands to reason that its 
opposite
> "ALL of the Klingons" must follow the same pattern, <<Hoch tlhIngan>>.

I'll accept /pagh tlhIngan/ as "no Klingon(s)", but I have seen no evidence 
*anywhere* to support the translation "none of the Klingons."  Thus I see 
no evidence for /Hoch Klingons/ as "all of the Klingons", only as "all 
Klingons."  That is, I see evidence for the presuppositional 
interpretation, not for the existential interpretation.   (I think I 
mis-labelled the constructions in the post when I first described the 
distinction.  "Q of the X" is presuppositional, "Q X" is existential.)  At 
any rate, whatever you label it, it's not partitive.

> Similarly, even though <<bID>> is listed as a noun and not a number, 
COMMON
> SENSE should tell you that if numbers are used as nouns, then nouns 
expressing
> quantity, even though they are not listed as chuvmey, must follow the 
rules of
> other numbers.

Stands to perfect reason.  This is precisely why I see /pagh tlhIngan/ and 
/Hoch tlhIngan/ as "no Klingon(s)" and "all Klingon(s)", since that's how 
TKD describes the interpretation of num+noun.

> Much of this
> confusion in the Klingon public may stems from the misapplication of TKD 
3.3.4
> concerning possession, where we are told that "the enemy's weapon", 
<<jagh
> nuH>>, can also be translated "weapon of the enemy."  This led to the 
grand
> and erroneous conclusion that all, "OF THE" constructions, should be 
treated
> as possessives, when in fact we know that partitivity and possession are 
two
> different concepts.  "The weapon OF THE enemy" is possession, "all OF THE 
> Klingons" is partitive.  While it is true that <<wa' bID tlhIngan>> can 
be
> ambiguous because it can mean either "one-half Klingon" or "one-half of 
the
> Klingons", the Klingon language is an ambiguous language and this is not 
an
> argument against using <<bID>> as a number, which it clearly is.

Is it a number or a quantifier?  Interesting, I can't decide.  All numbers 
are quantifers, but not all quantifiers are numbers.  "Many" is a 
quantifier, not a number.  Same with "all" and "some" and "few", etc.  I 
don't quite know where "half" fits in.

> Second, <<mangghom>> means "a soldier's group", i.e., an army.  This is a 
> standard N-N compound for army.

I know you mean "compound noun", and not "N-N."  Saying "N-N compound" is 
misleading, implying that compound nouns are interpreted as N-N (as your 
translation does), which we really don't know.  We know that /mangghom/ 
means "army".  The interpretation "soldier's group", though plausible, 
isn't given to us.  It's a guess.  We really don't know.  It could be 
"soldier-group".  It could be something we haven't seen before, since 
Okrand hasn't treated the interpretation of compound nouns yet.

>If you wanted to say "a group of soldiers"
> and use it partitively, then the correct translation would be <<ghom 
negh>>,
> since <<mang>> is singular.  There is, however, no canonical evidence for 
> <<ghom>> being used partitively.

You're trying to treat /ghom/ as a quantifier, which it clearly isn't.  I 
don't know how we arrived here in a discussion of quantifers, numbers, and 
partitives.

> One really needs to study Okrand's use of parts of speech more carefully 
in
> order to understand his fluidity of grammatical concepts:

Obviously.

> 	1.  Numbers are treated as either nouns or adverbs

Okay, that's not entirely accurate.  Numbers may be used as nouns.  There 
are also other uses for numbers, such as noun + number, as in /puq cha'/, 
"child number 2".  Nouns are not used this way, numbers are.  Numbers, when 
used with /-DIch/, are ordinals, and also follow the noun.  You can't add 
/-DIch/ to any random noun, only to numbers.  Numbers, when used with 
/-logh/, can be used adjectivally.  Not all numbers, only numbers with 
/-logh/.   To say that numbers are nouns or adverbs is misleading and 
over-simplifying.

[...]
> 	6.  Past participles are created by <<lu'bogh>> or <<lu'pu'bogh>> 
>      constructions.

What?  Where did this come from?  What is /lu'bogh/?  Doesn't mean anything 
to me.  Do you mean /-lu'bogh/, as in /targh leghlu'bogh/?  This means 
something like "the targ which one sees."  No participle, and certainly no 
notion of tense, since Klingon doensn't mark tense explicitly.  Really 
off-topic, but that came out of nowhere.

> If you don't keep your eyes open for such peculiarities of <<tlhIngan 
Hol>>,
> then you can also miss the obvious conclusion that "1/2 is a number!!!"

I'd say, if you shut your eyes tight and think real hard, you can convince 
yourself that the Klingon word /bID/ is a number, because the concept 1/2 
in English is a number.  But is /bID/ a number, or a quantifier?  Is it 
strictly a mathematical concept, or does it have broader usage?   When I 
say "I'm half Klingon", are we measuring molecules, or are we being more 
general, as in "I have Klingon and Terran lineage"?  I think it's the 
latter, which (to me) is more like a quantifier (along the lines of "many" 
and "most"), and not simply a number.  So, my answer to this is, yes, "1/2" 
is a number, but /bID/ is a quantifier.  Perhaps we'll learn that it's 
simply a word for a mathematial concept, like pi has a known 
interpretation.  Or maybe we'll learn otherwise.  But pretending that we 
have the answer won't make it true.

Okay, where are we now?  I'm too tired to go on, so I'll see what kind of 
response this generates.

--Holtej

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