tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 12 11:18:31 1997
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Re: Question as object
>Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 23:41:52 -0800 (PST)
>From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark E. Shoulson <[email protected]>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
>Date: Tuesday, December 09, 1997 10:30 PM
>Subject: Re: Question as object
>
>
>>You have to express indirect questions
>>SOMEhow, the question is how.
>
>Do you mean we have to express *what English expresses as indirect
>questions* somehow?
I suppose that's accurate, yes. Just as a Klingonist could correctly say
that English *must* have a way to express the verb {tIn}. It does, but not
as a (simple) verb.
You will say, "Aha, and Klingon need not, therefore, represent indirect
questions with any sort of question word!" And you'd be right. I never
said QAO was the only possible answer.
>Often, in showing how relative clauses don't always work, you've shown that
>they don't work because we're not referring to, say, the person himself, but
>to his *identity*. If we had a noun for "identity," we'd be able to use the
>relative clause? The fact that we don't have such a noun might support your
>examples, but isn't this really a matter of choosing vocabulary that matches
>your concept?
A noun for "identity", yes, would go awfully far. Just as we don't seem to
need anything special for "how" indirect questions, since "XmeH mIw" does
the job so nicely. But an identity noun won't work when the indirect
question isn't on the subject or object of the embedded clause ("I know to
whom the captain gave the knife", "I know from what the part is"), but then
again, those are hideously ugly even in ENGLISH, and we know that Klingon
can't hack non-subject-or-object relative clauses, maybe it can't hack them
in indirect questions either (even if it DOES use QAO or some other
construction which theoretically could be flexible enough for it). It
doesn't help the "whether" question, though, or the "why" one completely.
The "whether" question is still unchanged, and though we have {meq} for
things like "I know why...", there's noplace obvious to put the {meq} to
refer to a clause. "I know why the captain shot the Ferengi"...{*HoD
verengan bachghach meq vISov}--"I know the captain's ferengi-shooting's
reason"? Eeeeyuck! But probably {verengan bach HoD; meqDaj vISov} would
work just fine (no complaints on the use of {bach}, it's probably wrong.
But you know what I mean). Same with "when" questions; we have a word
{poH}, but I don't see a good way to apply it to a clause. -meH doesn't
sound right for reporting facts that happened (besides, the time when the
captain tripped might not have been "the time in order for the captain to
trip"; maybe it was the WRONG time. but it happened then anyway), and the
two-sentence deal doesn't sound right then either.
>You believe that questions as objects are the best answer here, but why
>can't we say, "The vocabulary being used simply doesn't support this
>concept, so we have to recast." I'd say that {ta' chotbogh ghot pong vIQoy}
>"I heard the name of the person who murdered the emperor" tells you exactly
>the same thing as the hypothetical {ta' chot 'Iv 'e' vIQoy}, but it uses
>only known Klingon grammar. I still cannot agree that questions as objects
>are the best solution. I think you have to adjust your choice of vocabulary
>to be able to use known Klingon grammar.
Might not have been his name. Maybe I heard his position or rank. Then I
suppose that's what I should say. Or maybe there's an idiom like {ta'
chotbogh ghot De' vIQoy}/I heard info of the person who murdered the
emperor. Of course, we don't know what the idiom is, and not knowing it
it sounds more like I'm working with the murderer... gotta be careful
there!
>(And what if it wasn't his name I heard, but something else? What is an
>identity but a name, a description, etc. Well, define that something else,
>and substitute in for {pong}.)
Oh, you saw this too. Right.
>-----BEGIN ASIDE-----
>In fact, I don't like either of these sentences for another reason. It
>seems very un-Klingon to me.
>
>A: ta' chot 'Iv 'e' vIQoy!
>B: chot 'Iv?
>
>A: ta' chotbogh ghot pong vIQoy!
>B: chot 'Iv?
>
>If A knows who did it, why doesn't he just say who it is right away, instead
>of announcing that he knows, and waiting for B to ask him who? Certainly,
>you might come up with situations where this might be necessarily, but it
>just feels funny to me to represent standard Klingon behavior. This is just
>an opinion aside, not a grammatical argument.
>
>A: Bob chot ta' 'e' vIQoy!
>B: yISam!
Surely you don't think Klingons can go blabbing secret information all the
time! Klingons know the value of secrecy better than most: De' pegh
Sovlu'DI' chaq Do'Ha'. Think how many times you know that a general knows
the plans for an attack or the number of ships that are involved but cannot
say because of military secrecy. Or a million other reasons that make the
fact that he knows some information not a secret, but the actual
information a secret (commercial non-disclosure agreements, the fact that
the details might end up dishonoring someone he does not want to dishonor
lest the Empire be thrown in turmoil, etc etc). Knowing information and
not being able to talk about it is hardly non-Klingon. It is the very core
of military thought!
>-----END ASIDE-----
~mark