tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 04 19:47:24 1999
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Re: the scope of {-be'}
[regarding {maqarbe'chu'}]
ja'pu' charghwI':
>Why mark
>{-chu'} as different from the rest of the statement? Why is
>{ma-} part of the negation and not {-chu'}?
I neglected to answer this the first time around. The answer is the
obvious fact that {-be'} does not come after {-chu'}. The statement
is being qualified with {-chu'}; the speaker is absolutely clear on
the idea {maqarbe'}.
Here's something I didn't notice before that might explain my view.
By separating out {ma-} as being part by the negation, you lose the
idea that it's the entire {maqar} that might be affected by {-be'}.
Again, what's the distinction you make between asserting "we are not
accurate" and negating "we are accurate"? I'm not trying to promote
a general principle that the scope of negation makes no difference.
I just don't see it making a difference in this example.
>When you bundle it
>together, you gain the ambiguity of suggesting that perhaps
>someone else is accurate and we are not. It's the "we" part that
>could be the focus of the negation.
jIja'pu':
>That pseudo-ambiguity is just as present in a simple sentence like
>{maqar}. Maybe it's the "we" part that's the focus of the assertion.
>But it's more likely not to be, since we have explicit pronouns that
>are generally used to provide that focus.
ja' charghwI':
>But there is no way to apply negation to a pronoun unless it is
>being treated as a verb. To use that in this kind of
>construction, we have to go to the perversity of:
>
>qarwI'pu' maHbe'.
>
>Yuck.
maqarbe'chu' maH. It is *we* who are completely inaccurate.
I don't see why you reject this as a valid way of emphasizing
the subject in the negation of "we are absolutely accurate".
jIja'pu':
>...The most likely intent is that the rover is modifying only
>the suffix it immediately follows, and the adverbial is not being
>negated. I'd go so far as to say that the presence of another suffix
>after the rover is a very powerful indication that the {-be'} isn't
>intended to negate the entire statement; if it were, it would come at
>the end of the verb.
ja' charghwI':
>That is a very interesting and convoluted argument without any
>justification.
Pardon? I just said that if a suffix appears after a rover, the
rover obviously isn't intended to apply to the entire statement.
What's convoluted about that? My justification is the trivial
observation that rovers apply to what comes *before* them, and
thus if something in a statement comes *after* one, the rover
cannot affect the entire statement.
>So, since it does seem absurd that suffixes following {-be'}
>should be somehow excluded from a globalized {-be'}...
You're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting the idea. It's
not absurd at all to exclude suffixes after a rover from the effect
of that rover; that's how rovers work, after all. I think you're
overreacting to the term "global" and pretending that there's some
argument that a rover can reach in both directions.
>, you respond
>by saying that it must be the case that if {-be'} is followed by
>any other suffixes, it must have the local interpretation, but
>if it is the last suffix on a verb, it probably uses the
>globalized interpretation.
No, I merely said that the presense of another suffix after the
rover is a very powerful indication that the {-be'} isn't intended
to negate the entire statement; if it were, it would come at the
end of the verb. I had just stated that it's more likely that the
rover is modifying only the immediately preceding thing anyway, so
there's not real reason to look for a less likely interpretation in
the first place unless the likely interpretation fails to make sense.
>By implication, this means that all
>verbs with {-be'} and a Type 9 suffix must use only the
>localized interpretation of {-be'} because {-be'} can't follow
>Type 9 suffixes.
Where did I say that the "localized interpretation" must be forced
by the presence of a subsequent suffix? I certainly didn't intend
anything of the sort.
>And you've also said that in simple cases like
>{maqarbe'} the globalized version doesn't work so well, either.
I believe I said something about the two interpretations coming up
with the same basic idea in simple cases like this.
>I wonder how many other exceptions that we need to make to this
>rule before it starts to actually do anything useful.
I'm not seeing these "exceptions" that you think I'm putting forth.
>If it really is the case that {batlh bIHeghbe'} is the only
>cannon example of Okrand doing this, and this example was
>created before Okrand introduced the option of using {batlhHa'},
>then might we come to the conclusion that the idea of using
>{-be'} to negate more than a single grammatical element
>preceeding it is a bit outdated and move on?
>[...]
>My point is that given the extremely limited utility of this
>small scope of statements, we would lose less by ignoring their
>existance entirely than we gain by respecting them enough to
>make a lot of otherwise clear statements suddenly ambiguous
>because we can't tell the scope of {-be'}. There is nothing that
>can't be said quite clearly with the local-only interpretation
>of {-be'} which is so much better said with the globalized
>{-be'} that can justify the muddiness of a language that can
>never know exactly what it is negating,...
But there are so many other things that we "can never know exactly"
that you don't seem to be worried about. The order of suffixes is
fixed, so how can we know that the speaker didn't intend something
that would violate the suffix order if strictly translated from an
English sentence? Your {maqarbe'} arguments prompted me to show a
basic uncertainty in {maqar} that exactly matches what you proposed
as the basic problem with negating more than a single syllable. It
is even hard to tell exactly what a purpose clause is modifying if
it comes before the object of a sentence -- is it the object, or is
it the verb?
The answer always seems to come down to the fact that this is not a
mathematically pure language, and there's always going to be some
measure of assumption in the interpretation of any utterance. For
fluent speakers who share a similar experience base, there's not a
problem. We deal with fundamental ambiguities in our native tongue
constantly without even being aware of it. So why make such a big
deal about being confronted by a characteristic of natural languages?
>especially since we can
>now negate adverbs (a relatively new feature of the language).
[Saying "we can now negate adverbs" goes a bit too far, I think. We
have some "negated adverbs" at our disposal, true. But Maltz didn't
like {*vajHa'}, and there was some interesting debate over what the
theoretical {*wejHa'} might mean.]
>> I too think the grammatical sogginess that this implies is...distasteful.
>> However, I just don't see it as that big a deal. I'm not troubled by
>> the presence of hard-to-interpret constructions in English grammar. I
>> have no problem accepting that they exist in Klingon as well. The only
>> time I'd be upset is if someone relied on them without giving other cues
>> to his intent.
>
>Why go to that trouble? Do you really think it is very Klingon
>to have to say something and then explain what you mean by it?
>This seems especially distasteful for something as elemental to
>the language as negation.
I don't begrudge you your wish for clarity in the language. But I do
take offense -- slightly -- at your insistence that things which make
for less clarity should be ignored. Worse, you seem to want actively
to attack any usage of them, making what appear to be grammatically
motivated pronouncements over what is arguably just a matter of style.
I'll make a deal with you. You go on reading and writing sentences
using the assumption that rovers can only act on the morpheme that
immediately precedes them, and I'll go on writing using whatever I
think gets my idea across effectively. We'll both be responsible,
jointly, for the process of communication. Okay?
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh