tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 04 07:00:07 1999
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Re: KLBG Re: Some questions
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBG Re: Some questions
- Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 09:59:26 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Thu, 04 Nov 1999 05:59:17 -0800 Ben Gibson
<[email protected]> wrote:
> If one says "jIHagh", "bIHagh" or simply "Hagh". I think
> that means "I laugh, you laugh, or they laugh, respectively.
> If there is no object, then the verb is used intransitively.
> "qaHagh", to me means I laugh (at) you.
The question you have to ask is, where did you get the "at"? You
basically made that up, changing the definition as given us.
This is not often a great idea.
> Possibly the same as
> SoHDaq jIHagh. (Although for some reason I keep thinking of
> French knights in a castle taunting English kinigits),
Exactly. This really means something more like "I laugh near
you." The laughing occurs at the location pointed out by the
locative.
> or
> maybe "choHaghmoH".
That is MUCH better.
> In short if an object is provided to
> this particular verb, I think it means the verb is used
> transitively. That in ta' Hol the difference between
> transitive and intransitive verbs is a bit more fuzzy than
> in English. If the object is another person or thing, then
> one is laughing at that.
You are making this up with nothing to go by. You can slap a
prefix on a verb that suggests that it is transitive just like
you can use word order in English with an intransitive verb
suggesting that it is transitive. Saying {qaHagh} is EXACTLY
like saying, "I laugh you." Nothing stops you from saying
{qaHagh}. Nothing stops you from saying "I laugh you." The
grammar allows you to place nouns and verbs in these positions.
It doesn't particularly mean anything, and when people hear you
talk like that, they presume that you are not a native speaker
of the language you are struggling with. If you hear these words
(either {qaHagh} or "I laugh you") you can almost certainly
figure out what the person meant. Still, that is not the same
thing as speaking the language.
I'm presuming that you intend to speak Klingon. If that is your
goal, then don't say {qaHagh} because by doing this, you are
failing to achieve your goal.
> qaHagh, Does it mean I laugh at you or I laugh with you?
No. It just means "I laugh you." There's not a lot of meaning to
be gleaned here. The main thing this "means" is "This person
doesn't speak the language very well. He is misusing the words."
> That is a good question that never occured to me. It appears
> to me that such a distinction is whether you intended to be
> funny or not. In both cases the laughter is directed at the
> object. The difference is in the intent of the object,
> whether to object intended to be funny or not, and not in
> the action itself.
The question you have failed to ask yourself is "Does "laugh"
have a direct object at all?" The answer to such a question
would be "No." That would save you a lot of fretting over
whether it means "laugh at" or "laugh with". It doesn't mean
either one, so far as we currently know. Until we do know, then
we don't use it with nouns that would like to be direct objects.
> And that distinction will have to be
> decided by context.
No. It has to be decided by convention. That is what vocabulary
is all about. The word "chair" does not mean "table" even though
you can sit on the floor and put your food on the seat of the
chair as if it were a table. We, as speakers of English, choose
to agree on what a table is and what a chair is and a chair is a
chair even while it is being used as if it were a table. The
same kind of agreement about meaning leaves us using the word
"laugh" with no direct object. Since the word "laugh" is the
only definition we have for {Hagh}, we have to assume it is used
the same way, which means we don't allow direct objects for the
verb {Hagh}. You can construct all the bad sentences you like
adding direct objects to {Hagh} and you can discuss all you want
about why you think this verb can take a direct object and what
kind of relationship that direct object has for that verb, but
when you do this, you are ignoring that very nearly everyone
else who speaks the language agrees that {Hagh} takes no direct
object. Language is an area where being different from the crowd
is not typically a cherished trait, since it implies
miscommunication.
> Obviously if I say qaHagh to a Klingon
> who did not intend to be funny, he may take exception and
> smack me around a bit. And if he were making a joke, he
> might be pleased that he succeeded.
No. More than likely, he'd think you were a tourist who was
clueless about the language.
> In short, I think that Hagh can be both. It is not a
> position that I will defend strongly. I present it only to
> see if this is right, as an aid in debugging my thinking.
You can defend it to the death, if you like. Odds are you'd
still be wrong.
> > So, if you assume that {Hagh} can take a direct object, then
> > what is that relationship? Is it who or what you laugh at? Is it
> > who you laugh with? Is it the joke? Is it the location? From the
> > definition, there's no way to discern this. The only way you can
> > work with the current definition is to not use a direct object
> > with {Hagh}. You have to think about meaning and available
> > tools. {jItlhaQmo' bIHagh.}
>
> Yeah I see how that works. But again, how do we know I
> intended to be funny?
You apparently don't see how it works. What I'm pointing out to
you is that when Okrand gives us a definition, his choice of
wording in English is chosen, in part, to explain to us the
relationship between the verb and any appropriate direct object.
{bav} means "orbit" and not just "move in an eliptical path"
because "orbit" takes a direct object, which is the item at the
center of the eliptical orbit travelled by the subject, which is
doing the orbiting. The direct object is not the path of the
orbiter or the orbiter itself or the size of the orbit or the
eccentricity of the orbit or the orientation of the orbit. It is
the item providing the gravity which sustains the orbit, or the
object in the position within the bounds of the orbit. The "move
in an eliptical path" definition would not imply any direct
object at all. See? You can't just make up relationships between
what you want to use as direct object and the verb. The
relationship has to be part of the collectively agreed upon
meaning of the verb.
So, when Okrand gave us {Hagh} = "laugh", he showed us that so
far as we know, {Hagh} cannot take a direct object. If you use
any direct object with {Hagh}, unless Okrand reveals some
supplemental information to let us know that the definition
"laugh" was incomplete or misleading, then we have to assume
that {Hagh} takes no direct object.
He has revealed this sort of thing before. Many of us assumed
that {Dub} - "improve" would be intransitive, and if we wanted
to use it transitively, we'd use {DubmoH}. Meanwhile, Okrand has
used this verb twice and both times he used {Dub} alone
transitively, so in order to say, "I improved", I have to say
{jIDub'eghta'} because otherwise, you can't tell what I have
improved.
Before Okrand revealed this usage, a Klingon speaker was better
justified using {Dub} intransitively and using {DubmoH} as the
transitive version would have made lots of sense to people, but
with greater understanding by observing usage, we learned this
verb more intimately.
Don't make assumptions about {Hagh} that you can't justify by
Okrand's definition or usage. You will only isolate yourself if
you continue doing this.
> > > > Okay. Though this doesn't say KLBC, I'm judging by the nature of
> > > > the errors so far, this is something pagh likely would prefer to
> > > > handle...
> > >
> > > Still qatlho'. choQaHqu'. jItljetlh vIQub.
> >
> > I probably should be able to guess what you were trying to say,
> > but I can't.
>
> I thank you. You help me greatly.
That much, I understood.
> I progress, I think (it).
I was thrown by your misspelling of tlhetlh. You meant
{jItlhetlh 'e' vIQub}. Leaving out {'e'} doesn't work here,
unless you meant merely that you progress and you think with the
object of "think" being left vague, but certainly not referring
back to the topic of your progress, since if you wanted THAT
meaning, you'd have used {'e'}.
> But my goal, it is far away. (Anyway that was what I was
> attempting to say.)
Better to say, "My goal is far away" than "My goal, it is far
away." Hop ngoQwIj.
> > > 'ach ngoQwIj 'oH
> > > Hop. jISuv, jIluj, jIghojtaH.
pItlh
charghwI'