tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 19 12:33:05 1997

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Re: maHagh tlhInganpu' (was:Klingon words for "subject"...)

-----Original Message-----
From: Terrence Donnelly <[email protected]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, November 19, 1997 2:21 PM
Subject: Re: maHagh tlhInganpu' (was:Klingon words for "subject"...)


>All this means is that this construction wouldn't apply in the vast
>majority of cases.  I can still see times when it could be useful.
>{rInpu'DI' may', raQ wIcheHmoH. maQong DoywI'pu'.  maSop ghunghwI'pu'.}
>Kind of poetic, maybe, and not often called for, but definitely useful
>in certain situations.

I presume you meant {cher}, and not {cheH}.

rInDI' may', raQ wIchermoH.  Qong Doy'wI'pu'.  Sop ghungwI'pu'.

I see no reason to try to use {ma-} here.  Perhaps you could explain the
necessity, or come up with another situation.

>I can only repeat again "Not always."  I can easily envision situations
>in which the speaker needs to clearly identify who "you" is in an
>utterance (as in picking a subset out of a larger group) or when the
>speaker might want to distinguish between an inclusive and exclusive
>"we".

One of the things I find most convincing in an argument is when the
statement "This construction would have to be used in certain situations" is
true.  If you can think of a situation where you'd need this construction
and I can't come up with a different one, then I'll definitely think higher
of your construction.

This is not to say I don't accept logical proofs.  But in this matter we've
exhausted all of the logical proofs, and I haven't changed my mind.
Besides, if you can stump me, it will convince me that there's a deficiency
in the grammar somewhere.  There shouldn't be too much of that, as Klingon
is [in our fiction of a Klingon culture] a fully-expressive natural
language.

>Right, and that would be the same reason for including an
>explicit noun in the cases noted above: to make it clear
>who exactly was meant by "you" or "we".  After all, Klingons
>may be inaccurate, but they are never imprecise. 8+)

The *reason* for doing it is not in question, the validity of it is.  The
reason is quite valid, but handled by different grammatical forms.

>>1. It is definitely unnecessary.
>>
>This argument I consider irrelevant.  The only person who can make
>decisions about what the language needs or doesn't need is Okrand.
>You may consider something unnecessary, but that doesn't negate the
>possibility of its existence.  I often think mosquitos are unnecessary,
>but that doesn't make them go away.

The argument is not irrelevant.  Klingon is not a language filled with
redundancies or irrelevancies.

In any case, now that several people have expressed doubts about this
construction, I'd say that at least qualifies it as "questionable."  Why
would you insist on using a questionable construction when an unquestioned
valid one would work just as well?  This is not an argument against the
validity of the construction, it's an argument against its *use* until more
information is found.

*ASIDE*  Heh . . . I frequently find myself on the side of those saying "You
can't do this."  Those who say "If you don't know, you can" only have to
scan each new piece of canon we get, hoping to find their favorite theory
proven.  Those who say "You can't" are not often able to point at a *lack*
of examples as evidence.  I was fairly certain that {-Ha'} could be used on
adjectivally-acting verbs, but I couldn't *prove* it, so, as BG, I said "You
shouldn't do it until we know more."  Then, in KGT we see {-Ha'} on an
adjectival verb for the first time, and the problem is solved.  However, if
I also said you can't put an aspect suffix on an adjectivally-acting verb --
a thing I believe, in fact -- I couldn't prove it either.  However, if I'm
right, we'll *never* get an example which will prove my point.  The only
thing that can prove it right is Okrand addressing the problem specifically
(which was not necessary for the {-Ha'} theory).

>>2. Sentences that use it are confusing. The extra noun at the
>>end sounds third person and seems to disagree with the subject
>>implied by the prefix. I cannot absorb it without looking at
>>the sentence several times. Since all that preceeds the noun
>>fails to explain its function in the sentence, I reflexively
>>expect something to follow the noun to explain what it is doing
>>in the sentence. Nothing follows and I have go back and look at
>>the sentence again to try to parse this noun into it.
>>
>
>I could say that this is just a result of your unfamilarity with
>the construction.  I'd wager that there was a lot about Klingon
>grammar that was confusing when you first started learning it.

Considering the rarity with which the construction would have to exist for
it not to have appeared in any of our canon yet, it's not surprising that
unfamiliarity with it would be jarring to the ear.

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