tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 15 07:55:41 1999
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Re: KLBC: Phrasal Doubts, QIn cha'
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 10:21:17 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
>
>I have not noticed anyone else answer this yet, and I understand
>that pagh is having problems getting through, so as former BG,
>I'll try to help.
Well-caught, charghwI'. Just a few comments of mine...
>On Sat, 13 Nov 1999 08:18:25 -0800 (PST)
>=?iso-8859-1?q?Clayton=20Cardoso?= <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I'd like to be able to express the following ideas:
>
>Before I say anything else, I have to note that I have a lot
>more respect for your seriousness about learning if you will
>actually TRY to express these things instead of just tossing
>them at us with no effort on your part whatsoever.
>
>The simple truth is that if you are trying to say something far
>enough away from basic grammar that you can't even try, then you
>are probably over your head and should be working on simpler
>stuff. Once you get the simpler stuff down, you'll be ready to
>make an attempt at this stuff.
>
>Meanwhile, I'll do what I can to help. If nothing else, I hope
>to assure you that the language is expressive enough to say
>these things.
What he said. Basically, it looks like you're trying to find the creases
and corners of the language, places where Klingon doesn't necessarily work
as transparently as one might like. Even places where Klingon really
doesn't have the tools to do the job well. This is not necessarily
productive, unless you're already comfortable with the core of the
language, with the tools it does have.
>> Even the tree is red.
>
>Doq Hoch. Doq Sor je.
I've wished for an "even" on this list, just recently. We haven't got one.
charghwI' is better than just about anyone at finding a decent way to cast
the meaning into a good Klingon sentence, but note that his method here
won't necessarily extend to any other "even" sentences you may come up with
(it may not even be appropriate to what you were thinking: maybe it wasn't
that the tree was red in addition to *everything*, maybe only the other
plants, or who knows what). This is NOT a criticism of charghwI', if
anything the opposite. The point is that when you're dealing with parts of
the language that don't have more or less straightforward parallels with
constructions in English (or other familiar languages)---or maybe that have
ones we don't yet know about---you may only be able to attack them on a
case-by-case basis. I can (and often do) wish for more general methods,
and sometimes even insist that they should exist, and sometimes even get
them (or claim that some method I have works), but sometimes they don't
have to exist, and sometimes they don't exist. And then your question is
less useful than you might like. Now you know how to say "even the tree is
red," in one situation, but not much else.
>> When I'm sixty years old I'll be tired.
>
>javmaHben vIboghpu'DI' jIDoy'.
jIboghpu'DI', right?
Um... Yeah, this works. Cool.
>> This device is dangerous for people under three years
>> old.
>
>There are several ways to handle this. Here's one:
>
>janvam lo'chugh puq Qup Qob ghu'. qaSpu'DI' puq qoS loSDIch
>qay'be'choH.
>
>or:
>
>janvam lo'chugh wejben boghpu'bogh puq vaj Qob ghu'.
>
>(I like the first one better.)
Me too.
>> The 38-year-old woman will travel tomorrow.
>
>wa'leS leng wejmaH chorghben boghpu'bogh be'.
You're playing with the somewhat convoluted way Klingon has to deal with "X
years old" in these two sentences. For all we know there's a simpler way
to say "an X year-old person", which we weren't given because we asked for
"I am X years old", which is a different construction. As you can see, we
can make do with what we have. There may be a simpler way we don't know
about, but we don't necessarily need it. Also note canon {cha'vatlhben
HIq} for "two-century-old ale", not necessarily applicable to people (or
even anything else but ale).
>> I walk faster than you.
>
>This one is remarkably awkward because Okrand chose to make
>{nom} an adverbial instead of an adjectival verb. Still, we have
>tools:
>
>mayItDI' DowIj law' law' DolIj law' puS.
That works.
You have to start moving away from law'/puS constructions sometimes,
though, like "I want it more than you" (unless you want to work with
neHtaHghach. Ugh). And for those situations you use other, perhaps more
idiomatic, ways: {DaneH, 'ach vIneHqu' jIH}, and so forth.
>> He arrived more suddenly than me.
>
>I'm a little curious about exactly what this means. It would
>help to have context. Does it mean that he threw the door open
>and ran in, while you just slowly opened it and sneaked in? It
>is a rather curious and awkward sentence in English.
>
>pay' paw. pay'Ha' jIpaw.
It's a very strange English sentence. Here and above you're trying to get
comparatives with adverbs. Note that charghwI' has provided a different
way of handling each. Remember what I said about general solutions and how
they aren't necessarily available? We have straightforward comparison ONLY
with a (single) verb of quality applied to two nouns. Anything else, and
you need to do something clever and not necessarily extensible.
>> I am in the green florest. (doubt here is {-Daq}
>> location)
>
>I'm assuming that "florest" is a misspelled "forest" and not a
>misspelled "florist", unless you know an extremely large and
>formerly very hungry professional flower vendor. I cannot
>understand your parenthetical incomplete sentence. I'm assuming
>that you are asking for the proper location of the suffix
>{-Daq}. It follows the adjectival verb, since it is a Type 5
>suffix. Only Type 5 suffixes are relocated in this way. There
>are a couple ways to say this:
>
>ngem SuDDaq jIHtaH.
>
>ngem SuDDaq vItu'lu'.
This IS simple, straightforward stuff. You'll find it in TKD. It's a
little exceptional because the type-5 suffixes do move, but it's there.
>> I killed the big guy who ate a blue food. (doubt here
>> is {-'e'} location)
>
>It marks the head noun. The head noun is the one that is both
>part of the relative clause (guy who ate blue food) and the main
>clause {I killed the guy}. That makes "guy" the head noun, which
>should get the optional topical marker.
>
>Soj SuD Sopbogh nuv'e' vIHoH.
And of course it's optional. Although Klingon food is often live, I doubt
even Klingons generally refer to "killing food" as such: they might kill
prey for food, or kill a specific creature for food, but as a listener if
you said {Soj SuD Sopbogh nuv vIHoH} I'd probably correctly deduce that it
was the person you killed and not the food, unless the context were
strange.
Oh, and I think we missed your question: you had an adjective on "the big
guy", and are still exploring type-5 location on adjective-modified nouns
(OK, not adjectives: verbs used adjectivally). If you choose to use -'e',
it would then be
Soj SuD Sopbogh nuv tIn'e' vIHoH
since -'e' is also a type-5 suffix.
>> I want you to never use the device that is green.
>
>not jan SuD Dalo' vIneH.
>
>> I never want you to use the device that is green.
>
>jan SuD Dalo' not vIneH.
>
>Please note that this has exactly the same meaning as:
>
>not jan SuD Dalo' vIneH.
>
>If you never want someone to use something, that is effectively
>the same thing as wanting them to never use it.
I could argue that the meanings are not exactly the same, but let's face
it, in most English conversations you could use them interchangeably. If
the subtle shade of different meaning were truly important, even in English
you'd have to explain it in more detail: "I never want you to use it. Not
that I want you never to use it, mind you..." (whatever that means). Even
English can't express this distinction (if there is one) meaningfully
without extra sentences. You could do the same in Klingon, with more
verbiage.
>> I want you to use the device that is never green.
>
>not SuDchoHbogh jan'e' DaH Dalo' vIneH.
>
>I threw the {DaH} in just to disambiguate the sentence, since
>under normal conditions an adverbial preceeds the direct object
>of a verb, so if that direct object is a relative clause, you
>can't tell if the adverbial applies to the main verb or to the
>relative clause. It's a classic ambiguity in the language, and
>many people here love ambiguities. They quite passionately
>defend them as one of the marks of REAL LANGUAGE. The more
>ambiguity, the better. They beat down anyone who dares voice a
>preference for actually conveying meaning.
Seems like a perfectly natural ambiguity to me.
>See TKD, top of page 180 for my justification for the placement
>of {DaH}.
>
>Also note, you can always say this sort of thing clearly in two
>sentences:
>
>not SuDchoH jan. janvam Dalo' vIneH.
By which argument we hardly need -bogh at all. Which just goes to show
that there's more than one way to skin a cat. (Way #47: super-glue and a
toothbrush).
~mark