tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 22 08:02:36 1998
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: names and "to be" again (was Re: KLBC)
ja' charghwI':
>Klingon does not have articles. We add them to our English
>translation WHERE APPROPRIATE in order to make the sentences
>sound better to our English speaking ears. Meanwhile, sentences
>work without articles.
>
>Captain is Krankor.
>
>Krankor is captain.
>
>You have problem with this? We go outside. Talk. Not break so
>much furniture this way.
I have no problem with this. Both "captain" and "Krankor" are
being used here to refer to a person. The semantics of the
sentence succeed.
>So your REAL problem is that you don't like the ENGLISH sentence
>"My name is Alan."
I don't like the way it implies something that I disagree with, but
I have no problem with it grammatically. In *English* it works.
>I may not be Will, but my NAME is Will. Saying, "I am Will," may
>be considered an idiom, but saying, "My name is Will," is pretty
>straight forward.
If that's really what you believe, then we are at an impasse.
Because I believe exactly the opposite!
I am Alan. There's nothing idiomatic about it; it is absolutely
clear and straightforward. However, my name is Alan only if you
recognize the idiomatic convention of using "Alan" as a *word* in
the phrase and not as a reference to a *person*.
>Can you really be a name? But a name is, well, a name.
That's part of what I'm trying to say. A person is not a name, and
a name is not a person. But *I* am a person. "Will" can be a name,
certainly. And a name is a name, certainly. But I am not a name,
nor is a name me.
***
What follows is effectively irrelevant to my arguments about how I
see it working in Klingon. I'm just trying to make clear my reasons
for preferring one order over another in English.
>So MY name is Will.
This is grammatically correct (in English), but...
>I may have other names, but that
>name is mine, so that name is my name.
...as soon as you explain your reasoning, note that you resort to
stating it in the other direction. Twice. Not that it *means*
anything, but the difference in order stands out to me plainly.
>I could have more than
>one car, but that car is MY car. I may have more than one chair,
>but this chair is MY chair. I may not BE this chair, but the
>chair is my chair...
All of these put the single thing being talked about as the subject
and the idea of "my thing" as the object, except
>...and my chair is this chair.
...which sounds a little to me like you only have one chair: this one.
There can be contexts where it doesn't, of course, but when I tried to
come up with one I kept failing. You might be in front of a collection
of chairs, pointing to one and saying "my chair is this chair" -- which
rather strongly implies that none of the others is yours. But if you
started pointing to chairs, saying "this chair is my chair" doesn't do
anything to imply you won't say it again for another chair.
It's still only a matter of style, not grammar, and again please don't
take my arguments here as applying to Klingon.
>In as much as names are possessed by those who are identified by
>them, a person's name is their name, so whether you like it or
>not, your name is Alan. You may not actually BE Alan, but you
>can't really argue that your name is not Alan because, well, it
>is. It just IS. If it isn't then, well, what is it?
"...a person's name is their name" is a semantically null statement.
But still, we seem to be arguing with opposite opinions as to what is
obviously correct. I indeed AM Alan, and my name is not! It's very
plain to me that we simply think differently about either the word "is"
or how names are used or both.
***
Now back to my arguments about Klingon.
>1. It is just FINE to use "to be" to indicate equivalence, as in
>{'enterpray' 'oH DoS'e'.}
It's quite okay to use "to be" in Klingon when there is equivalence.
It just happens to be the case that the target and the Enterprise
are the same thing. It's not *indicated* by the use of {'oH}, in
much the same way {'ej} doesn't *indicate* sequence in {teplIj yIwoH
'ej pa'lIjDaq yIghoS}. It's that way because of the situation, not
because of the grammar.
>2. Names don't have to always refer to the thing or person
>having the name. That is not significant when translating
>{*Alan* 'oH pongwIj'e'.}
I believe it *is* significant. Because "my name" and "Alan" are not
the same thing, I think using {'oH} her is inappropriate.
>3. None of this has anything to do with articles and the
>beginning of this whole argument was your inappropriate addition
>of an article into an otherwise fine translation specifically in
>order to sabotage the sentence, artificially making it sound as
>if it were invalid.
After we drop the articles, if I take away the possessive suffix, does
it sound any less invalid? "Name is Will." I can't make it work for
me.
>Meanwhile, you have failed utterly to show any valid reason that
>you should HAVE any problem with "My name is Will." It does not
>deserve the addition of an article in front of "Will" as you
>added it in front of "Alan" in the earlier example, and without
>that excuseless article, the sentence is a very common one in
>English and has no grammatical rule to invalidate it. In
>English, the verb "to be" can indicate equivalence.
>
>Concise Oxford Dictionary:
>
>be - ... 2. ... "coincide in identity with"
>
>Hmmm. Seems a lot like equivalence to me. Doesn't sound like "is
>a member of". Equivalence. Deal with it.
I deal with it in English. I have no compelling evidence that the idea
of "coincide in identity with" is carried by Klingon pronoun as "to be".
In fact, {rap} and {nIb} serve that meaning very well.
>> A name can be described as "a word" or "a sound" or
>> "a symbol", but I am quite certain it can not be "an Alan". A person
>> can be "an Alan" (but he can not be "a sound" or "a word").
>
>More smoke and mirrors. This has nothing to do with a name being
>capable of acting as object of a "to be" sentence.
It has much to do with a name being an *appropriate* object of a "to be"
sentence. The grammar is not at fault; the semantics of the sentence
are what trip me up. "Stained glass is that window" is quite grammatical,
but semantically odd in English, as {Qorwaghvetlh 'oH nguvwI''e'} is in
Klingon. I see a mild form of this same semantic trouble when trying to
use a name as the object of a "to be" sentence with the word {pongwIj}
as the subject. My name is not described by "Alan". There is a lack of
symmetry in the situation. If there were only one thing "Alan" and only
one thing "my name" it wouldn't trouble me, but that's not the case.
>> "Klingon pronouns as 'to be' should not be used to indicate
>> equality the way "my name is Alan" does in English."
>
>Except of course in the sentence {'enterpray' 'oH DoS'e'} one
>assumes. Okrand was either mistaken, or he was making a special
>case in this example. It must have been an ancient dialect,
>right?
Klingon pronouns as "to be" can certainly be used when the subject and
object *are* the same thing, but I don't see the pronoun as *meaning*
that they are the same thing.
>So, you would argue that Okrand should have said, {rap DoS
>'enterpray' je.} But he didn't, just like he likely would have
>not said {rap SoSwI' be'nI'lI' je} and would instead have
>preferred {SoSwI' ghaH be'nI'lI''e'}
I won't argue with Okrand. But I would have expected something more like
{'entepray' puSta'} for "Enterprise targeted!" And I don't complain about
the {SoSwI'...} sentence, because both {SoSwI'} and {be'nI'lI'} are people
(presumably the same people) being referred to in a common way.
I don't complain about {Qugh ghaH HoD'e'} because {Qugh} and {HoD} both
refer to people. I *do* complain about {Qugh 'oH pongDaj'e'} because I
think {Qugh} refers to a person while {pongDaj} refers to a word.
>> Under my interpretation of pronouns as "to be", there's another way that
>> can be interpreted as equivalence, but it isn't explicit. If one uses a
>> pronoun as "to be" with a sufficiently well-specified object, that object
>> can sometimes be restricted to a single thing, and the subject must be a
>> member of the set containing only that thing.
>
>In other words, equivalence. Two plus two is four. I am what I
>am and that's all that I am. A deal is a deal. Truth is truth.
>God is God.
>
>And the funny thing about sufficiently specifying an object so
>that it is restricted to a single thing is that you can then
>reverse the subject and object and, lo and behold, the new
>object can ALSO be restricted to a single thing, just like the
>old one did. That's why they are reversible.
This works fine *if* both the subject and object are indeed that closely
specified. In the {Qugh 'oH pongDaj'e'} I complain about, {pongDaj} is
*not* that closely specified. "My name is Will" must, according to the
"funny thing" you mention above, imply that your name is not anything else.
But you apply exactly the same argument to {charghwI' 'oH pongwIj'e'}. It
doesn't work both ways, unless you're going to argue that {pong} only means
a Klingon name and "name" only means a legal birth-certificate one. I hope
you don't want to argue that.
>> Because I believe {'oH} to be a categorizer, I thus believe the specific
>> disease "mumps" should be the subject and the general phrase "your disease"
>> should be the object.
>
>But mumps is only one disease. And "your disease" is only one
>disease. They are the SAME disease. They are equivalents. They
>are reverseable.
In the specific case where you have only one disease, the semantics of
the situation work to permit them to be used in either role. If we're
working in a restricted context where "your disease" is known to refer
to only one disease, it works. In English it works well. In Klingon,
I think it works poorly at best.
>If mumps is really more than one disease, or if
>"your disease" is really more than one disease, then this is no
>longer an equivalence and it becomes significant which is
>subject and which is object, or the statement becomes false.
There *are* more diseases than mumps!!! "Your disease" can be one of
millions of diseases!!! It *is* significant which is subject and which
is object!!!
>> I thought it was obvious. The appropriate (as defined by
>> my unusally narrow interpretation of "to be") use of pronouns as "to be"
>> *can* express equivalence, but not as a primary syntactic effect. Like
>> the occasional {'ej} implying sequence, it's the way the world works and
>> not the grammar that brings out the "equivalence" meaning.
>
>Your argument is really crumbling here. It sounds like you are
>explaining why it doesn't work, though you really think it
>should.
I'm explaining why it sometimes *looks* like "to be" indicates equivalence.
A "to be" sentence can be used when the subject and the object are the same
thing; there's no reason to restrict its use to prevent that. But "to be"
in Klingon does not by itself *imply* equivalence.
>> Actually, I *have* been giving my preferred way to express this, and I
>> have done it every single time I mentioned my discomfort with phrases
>> like {torgh 'oH pongwIj'e'}. I'm sure you'll recognize it immediately:
>>
>> {pongwIj 'oH torgh'e'}
>
>There is no reason that we should consider {pongwIj} to be a set
>of things restricted to one without considering {torgh} to be
>identically restricted. In both cases, we are talking about one
>item. These items are equivalent. There is no justification for
>arguing that one of them is uniquely qualified to be the object
>of this sentence while the other is not.
I most emphatically am *not* considering {pongwIj} to be a set of things
restricted to one! That is in fact a major part of my argument. When I
say {pongwIj 'oH [vay']'e'} I am giving one thing and identifying it as
a name -- my name. I am not ruling out the possibility that I might then
say {pongwIj 'oH [latlh]'e'}. law' pongwIj jay'!
>> Since "my name" is rather restricted in this context, this phrase does
>> a pretty good job of indicating equivalence between {torgh} and {pongwIj}.
>
>So, you are arguing that if we drop the {-wIj}, it is valid to
>say {pong 'oH torgh'e'} but it is not valid to say {torgh 'oH
>pong'e'.}
I wasn't arguing that before, but I did start using that argument.
>That's the first thing you've said that I can agree with. If you
>remove the restriction given by {-wIj}, then we have an example
>of "to be" acting as the junction between a member of a set and
>the set itself, as in {tlhIngan maH}.
Right. "We are Klingons" and "Klingons are us" are not interchangeable.
>Meanwhile, this has nothing to do with articles. In fact, it has
>no more to do with the object of "to be" than it does with the
>SUBJECT of "to be". It has nothing to do with use/mention. It is
>worthy of note.
>
>Meanwhile, it is not justification for your argument.
>Restricting {pong} by adding {-wIj} is not really any different
>from restricting the entire universe of potential names by using
>{torgh}. In both cases, we are pointing to one item. That item
>is {pongwIj}. That item is also {torgh}. Those two different
>nouns point to the same entity. They are equivalents. A "to be"
>sentence bonding these two as subject and object is a statement
>of equivalence.
{pongwIj 'oH [X]'e'} and {torgh 'oH [X]'e'} does not imply to me either
{torgh 'oH pongwIj'e'} or {pongwIj 'oH torgh'e'}. Saying "that item is
{pongwIj}" doesn't rule out other items also being {pongwIj}. In fact,
saying "that item is {torgh}" tends to rule out that item being a name!
>> But, again, it's only in this particular context that the equivalence
>> holds; the idea doesn't work the same when stated in the other order.
>> And in the case of names, I don't even think equivalence is necessarily
>> the right concept to be expressing.
>
>I honestly don't think you have any grounds for making that
>exceptional objection.
*sigh* I don't know how to explain myself any more clearly. A name is
a sound, a label, a way to refer to a thing. A name is not one particular
sequence of letters. A name does not fall under the category "Alan". It
is the other way around: "Alan" falls under the category of names. Alan
is an instance of a name. A name is not an instance of "Alan". I do not
see "name" and "Alan" being anything like equivalent.
My objection to using the idea of equivalence for names is not exceptional.
It is firmly based in what I think a name represents. I'd have a similar
"exceptional objection" to a sentence like {DujwIj 'oH ghIch'e'}. Noses
are not ships. Names are not Torgs. It's that simple.
-- ghunchu'wI'