tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 12 20:34:18 1997

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RE: plans



[email protected] on behalf of Marc Ruehlaender wrote:
> > > > {yuch Soppu' puq 'e' vISovbe'}
> > 
> > >I'd translate as "I didn't know that the child ate
> > > the chocolate.", because obviuosly, NOW you know, as you have stated it
> > > as a fact.
> 
> SuStel replied:
> > 
> > Not necessarily.  There's nothing in the sentence to indicate tense.
> 
> well, not directly; my argument is more indirect:
> 
> - there are two possibilities: {yuch Soppu' puq} is either true or false
> 
> - you can either know whether it is true or you don't
> 
> - if you do know, you can say {yuch Soppu'(be') puq 'e' vISov}
> "I know that the child has(n't) eaten the chocolate."
> 
> - if you don't know, you can say {yuch Soppu''a' puq 'e' vIjanglaHbe'}
> "Has the child eaten the chocolate? I cannot answer that." or
> "I don't know whether the child has eaten the chocolate."

If you do know, you say {'e' vISov} "I know that."  If you don't know, you say 
{'e' vISovbe'}.  There's no reason to believe that the first sentence of a 
Sentence As Object must be true.

bIcharghchu' 'e' vIbot
I will prevent you from conquering all.

{bIcharghchu'} has NOT happened, and if I get my way it never will.  (And if I 
don't get my way, the entire SAO is false anyway.  This is an irrelevant 
case.)

The thing which you know is {'e'}.  The thing which you do not know is {'e'}.  
It does not matter whether {'e'} is true or false.

> - if you didn't know earlier, but know now, you can say
>     {yuch Soppu'(be') puq 'e' vISovbe'} to indicate you didn't know or
>     {yuch Soppu'(be') puq DaH 'e' vISov} to indicate you know now

When you see an aspect suffix on the first sentence of a Sentence As Object, 
remember that there's funny grammar that may be at play.  TKD states that even 
if the aspect's sense applies to the second sentence's verb, it will be put on 
the first one.  In fact, any aspect suffix in a Sentence As Object tends to 
affect the entire construction, not just one of the verbs.

> > It could just as easily mean 
> > "I don't know that the child has eaten the chocolate."
> 
> but this statement implies that "the child has eaten the chocolate" is true.

No, it doesn't.  See above.

> unless you mean that in English it means the same as
> 
> "I don't know whether the child has eaten the chocolate."

That's exactly what I mean, and that's exactly what the sentence means.

> you're saying that you don't know that something is true.
> This is a confusing statement for me. I can accept
> 
> {yuch Soppu' puq 'e' Sovbe'.} 
> "(S)He doesn't know that the child has eaten the chocolate."
> 
> if you (the speaker) know that it is true.

Suppose {yuch Soppu' puq} is false.  Then I certainly can't know that {yuch 
Soppu' puq}, can I?

> > Right now, I don't know.  I believe this would be the correct way to
> > express 
> > this idea in Klingon, instead of with a question as the object.  
> 
> only if you interpret "that" as "whether" and then how do you translate
> the sentence with "(s)he" above?

It's vague.

> > In English, we'd usually state it with "if": 
> > "I don't know if the child ate the chocolate."

Also consider the following, posted by Marc Okrand.  Note especially his 
translation of the sentence with {SIv}.

---------------------------------

All four words asked about (tul "hope," Qub "think," Sov "know," and SIv
"wonder") can be used in the construction S 'e' V, where S is a sentence,
'e' is the pronoun ("that") which refers to a previous topic (in this case
S), and V is one of the verbs listed above (as well as some others).

If the sentence (S) is tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh "you speak Klingon" (tlhIngan
Hol "Klingon language," Dajatlh "you speak it"), it's OK to say:

tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vItul "I hope that you speak Klingon"
(vItul "I hope it")

tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vIQub "I think that you speak Klingon"
(vIQub "I think it")

tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISov "I know that you speak Klingon"
(vISov "I know it")

tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISIv "I wonder if you speak Klingon"
(vISIv "I wonder it")

The fourth example is weird from an English translation point of view, but
it falls right in line in Klingon. If the English translation matched the
pattern of the other three sentences, it would be "I wonder that you speak
Klingon." In English, this means something like "I'm surprised that you
speak Klingon" or "I don't understand how it can be that you speak
Klingon," but this is not what the Klingon sentence means. The Klingon
sentence means something more like "I am curious about whether you speak
Klingon." The clumsiness here is the English, not the Klingon.

One other verb that can be used in the V slot in such sentences is Hon
"doubt":

tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vIHon "I doubt that you speak Klingon"
(vIHon "I doubt it")

I'll return on another occasion to the question of whether the sentence
preceding the 'e' in such sentences can be a question. This is a more
general issue than whether you can do it with SIv "wonder" and I need some
clear guidance from Maltz.



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