tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 09 12:34:55 1997

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Re: plans

I can see the point you believe yourself to be making here, but 
I am quite certain you are misguided. To express the difference 
in meaning you want, you need to choose more appropriate verbs 
in a relative clause. Your concept of an indirect question is 
invalid in Klingon grammar.

Klingon has direct quotes. It does not have indirect quotes. It 
also has Sentence As Object, which is not related to any kind of 
quote, question or not. Quotations are handled in the chapter on 
Sentence As Object in TKD, but there are sufficient grammatical 
differences to show that they are not grammatically related. I 
can see how Okrand considered them to be similar enough in topic 
to include them in the same chapter, though I suspect if he had 
thought a little more about it, he would have made them separate 
chapters.

Quotations are not like Sentence As Object because the quotation 
does not act as object of the verb of speech. There is no 
restriction on any verbs involved in a quotation using aspect 
markers, while the second verb in SAO cannot take an aspect 
marker. The verb of speech can appear before or after the 
quotation.

Now, you are trying to argue that while indirect quotation is 
never used with the Sentence As Object construction, for some 
reason questions should be handled differently, even though 
there is no hint anywhere in canon that this is the case.

On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 19:19:51 -0800 (PST) David Crowell 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Alan Anderson wrote:
> > >A indirect question consists of an interrogative sentence, transformed
> > >in a phrase such that it is asked about in another sentence. 

First, I'd challenge the validity of any form of indirect 
question in Klingon grammar. There is simply no justification 
for it, so trying to set up criteria for its validity seems a 
bit of an odd angle from which to examine this.
...
> > Can you give an example of such an "indirect question"?  Whatever it is,
> > it sounds to me like the "He knows who hit the child" example isn't one.
> "He knows who hit the child" _is_ an example of an indirect question.
> Question: What does he know?
> Answer: (He knows) who hit the child.

Note that this is not accurate. The question is not "What does 
he know?" The question is "Who does he know?" Furthermore, the 
question does nothing except to identify or describe the person 
known. This is the function of a relative clause in Klingon 
grammar.

> He might know because he saw the child being hit, however it is not
> known whether he knows the person who hit the child or not (he can be
> someone whom he never saw before). Perhaps he might know because he was
> the one who did the hitting. 
> Or the child told him *who did it*.

All you need to have to make the difference you seek is to 
change {Sov} to {ngu'laH}. You are trying to say that as a 
relative clause, {puq qIppu'bogh nuv'e' Sov,} fails because he 
may know the person who hit the child but not know that this 
person hit the child. He may also be able to identify who hit 
the child even though he is not familiar with that person and 
therefore not know him. So, the problem is really with the 
choice of verb, not with the choice of grammar.

This is the core of your argument and with a simple verb change, 
your entire argument is completely unnecessary even before one 
recognizes that it is invalid. It is clear that not one person 
read what you wrote and understood what you were trying to 
express, while I suggest that if you replace {Sov} with 
{ngu'laH}, not one person who can understand how to translate a 
Klingon relative clause would fail to understand what you meant.

This kind of ability to understand what we are saying is the 
whole point of working with a langauge. If what you intend to 
express fails to be generally understood, you fail. It is that 
simple. You have failed.

> By the way, that was another example of an "indirect question".
> the child -- subject
> told -- verb
> him -- indirect object
> who hit the child -- direct object.

The problem here is that Klingon does not have this grammatical 
construction. This would be expressed as a direct quote, which 
is not a Sentence As Object at all:

muqIp HoD ja' puq.

or it would be expressed as a relative clause:

puq qIpbogh nuv ngu'ta' puq.
...
> > >But there is a difference in meaning between an indirect question and a
> > >relative clause.

There also is a difference in validity. Klingon does not have 
indirect quotes or indirect questions. Deal with it. We lose 
very little by this. The language gets along quite well without 
them.
 
> > I'm curious about this.  Please provide an example of each and show what
> > you mean.
> See my previous posts
> > [much story snipped]
> > >Huch nge'bogh ghot Sov chom, 'ach Huch nge' 'Iv 'e' Sovbe' chom.
> > >Quark knows the one who took the money, but he doesn't know who took the
> > >money.

Huch nIHlaHta'bogh Hoch'e' Sov *Quark*, 'ach nIHwI'na' 
ngu'laHbe'.

So, what is your point?
...
> Right, Quark knows the thief, because the thief is either Rom or Nog,
> and he knows both of them.
> However he just does not know who the thief is.

He is familiar with the thief, but he cannot identify him. The 
confusion is created because we use the verb "know" to mean both 
"be familiar with" and "be able to identify". Meanwhile, in 
Klingon, while we don't have a separate verb for "be familiar 
with", we do have a separate verb for "identify" and we can 
solve this little problem without trying to invent new grammar.

> > Same question: does Paris know the thief or doesn't he?
> > 
> > Oh, wait, perhaps I see what you're trying to do.  Are you attempting to
> > distinguish between two different meanings of the word "know"?  te
> Exactly. The first statement answers the question:
> Whom does Paris not know?
> The second and third sentences answers what Paris knows.

No it doesn't. The second one is simply gibberish. I can see why 
you believe that this Question As Object is trying to hold the 
meaning of the fact that money is stolen and a particular person 
stole it, but in truth, you are only pointing at the person, not 
the money or the action of stealing it. The money and theft are 
only identifying descriptors of the person, which is what 
relative clauses are all about. It is STILL a faulty attempt to 
build a relative clause out of the wrong grammar through a 
specialized form of indirect quotation when Klingon does not 
SUPPORT indirect quotation in ANY form.
 
> A few languages do use different verbs to distinguish difference.
> Indirect question

But Klingon does not support any form of indirect quotation, 
whether question or statement. Pointing out how these are 
supported in other languages is irrelavant.

> the numbers are there to make the word-order in English:

> Spanish example...

> German example...

> > Instead
> > of misusing interrogatives as if they were relative pronouns in an attempt
> > to mirror the English phrasing, why not choose more precise words?
> > 
> > {nIHwI' qIHta'be' Human 'ach nIHwI' ngu'laH Human.}
> > Paris hasn't met the thief, but Paris can identify the thief.
> But maybe Paris has met the thief, perhaps not. He might have ordered
> some food from Nog, and a drink from Rom.

You lost me here. What are you trying to express?

> It 
> > -- ghunchu'wI'
> 

charghwI'

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