tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 21 01:09:34 1997

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{neH} `only' (Re: Quotable quotes)

Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
[replying to me on the subject of {neH}
> I think the main problem here is that there is abiguity in the Klingon
> "neH", with its two meanings, [...]

Thing is, I don't think the Klingon {neH} is ambiguous.  I don't see
the difference between trivialisation and restriction as significant.
Whether applied to a verb or a noun, {neH} means `... and/but nothing
else', `... and/but no more':

  {qama' vIqIp neH.}  `I hit (but didn't wound or kill) the prisoner.'
  {qama' neH vIqIp.}  `I hit the prisoner (but not the guard or the king).'

It's basically the same meaning, and accordingly it is expressed in the
same way in very many (very likely most) Terran languages (cf. Russian:
_Ja tol'ko udaril plennika_ vs _Ja udaril tol'ko plennika_).  It is the
English tongue that works in a strange way, expressing that concept in
different ways depending on whether it modifies a noun or a verb, and
this is the only reason why {neH} appears ambiguous to the mind of an
English speaker.  But while it may be an important fact about English,
it's not relevant to Klingon.

> It doesn't help matters any that we're talking about modifying
> a copula, whose meaning is so bland and amounts to almost verbalizing
> a noun [...], so that modifying it and modifying the noun are
> pretty much the same thing.

Sure.  And if one turns to a language with zero copula (my guinea pig
is Russian; yours would probably be Hebrew), one will find that there
doesn't seem to be a simple way to trivialise the copula (`[only is] X')
as opposed to restricting the complement (`is [only X]'), but that isn't
perceived as a problem in practice, because, as you say,

> I don't see much difference between [it [is [only [a/the thing]]]]
> and [it [[only is] [a/the thing]]], as I said before about how modifying
> the copula and modifying the complement come out about the same.

One might be able to think of a context where one would want the second
meaning (`Doesn't he have a slave?' -- `No, he merely *is* a slave.'),
but that's too twisted.  In some Terran languages there's no easy way
to say it; in any case it's hardly a common and useful construction.

> However, if you do take the view that when 'oH is a copula it acts
> only as a verb, you can't really [it [is [only [a/the thing]]]], since
> that is basically applying a trivializing concept to a noun, which
> we don't have in Klingon.

Here's what I think we can say in Klingon:

  `[[only it] [is Y]]'  {Y 'oH neH}
  `[[only X] [is Y]]'   {Y 'oH neH X'e'}
  `[it [is [only Y]]]'  {Y neH 'oH}
  `[X [is [only Y]]]'   {Y neH 'oH X'e'}

> Hebrew: "the only thing"/"ha-davar ha-yachid" (yachid < root for "one,
> unity").  "only a thing"/"raq davar"  "only the thing"/"raq ha-davar"

Right.  Now imagine the reaction of a Hebrew speaker to *_ha-davar ha-raq_,
and you'll understand why I objected to {Doch neH} for `the only thing'.

--'Iwvan

-- 
"mIw'e' lo'lu'ta'bogh batlh tlhIHvaD vIlIH [...]
 poH vIghajchugh neH jIH, yab boghajchugh neH tlhIH"
                                  (Lewis Carroll, "_Snark_ wamlu'")
Ivan A Derzhanski  <[email protected], [email protected]>
Dept for Math Lx,  Inst for Maths & CompSci,  Bulg Acad of Sciences
Home:  cplx Iztok  bl 91,  1113 Sofia,  Bulgaria

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