tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 09 01:43:02 2000
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RE: Deixis and direction
I can see that I have karma to pay for all the times that I have excessively
judged others analysis of grammar. We have lost our ability to respect our
differences and instead we tell each other how wrong we are sure the other
is. I regret my contribution towards this norm.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Anderson [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 5:15 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: Deixis and direction
>
>
> ja' charghwI':
> >Meanwhile, we each see the other person's question as backwards
> because we
> >are focussing on different points. You are looking at it from sentence
> >construction, while I'm looking at it from the task of
> understanding how to
> >use specific verbs well. You can follow all the rules and put
> words in each
> >position in the sentence structure with all the right suffixes for the
> >sentence structure and still speak gibberish if you have put the
> wrong noun
> >assigned to the given grammatical functions.
>
> No, you're completely misunderstanding where I'm coming from. I am most
> definitely *not* looking at sentence construction. When I'm considering
> how your task of understanding verbs' usage leads you to an impressive
> array of rules and exceptions, I'm doing it from the point of view of
> semantics, not syntax.
I honestly believe that when working with sentences and not just diagrams,
separation of syntax and semantics is somewhat artificial. The two are so
deeply intermeshed.
> Your goal of understanding the various roles of nouns associated with
> specific verbs is a good one, but I still think you're going about it from
> the wrong end of the task. Instead of beginning with syntactic terms like
> "direct object" and trying to deduce rules for placing nouns to fit the
> slots those terms create, I'm convinced that one should instead focus on
> the semantic terms of "actor" and "recipient" and the like.
So, what is a subject if not an actor? What is a recipient if not a direct
object? Changing the terms is not bringing about a benefit in any way that
is obvious to me.
> Finding the
> appropriate role of a noun is not a grammatical task.
I agree that it doesn't start out that way, but if you are actually going to
make sentences with that noun, eventually it does need syntactical markings
or placement to make clear its grammatical role in the sentence. The
recipient has to go before the verb because the recipient is a direct
object. The actor has to follow the verb because the actor is the subject.
The term "beneficiary" is interesting because it seems to be a superset
containing indirect objects, but including other types of beneficiaries that
are somehow not indirect objects.
> The grammar is
> simple, and it's almost trivial to turn a well-formed idea into a
> well-formed sentence *after* you've determined the proper idea.
> But unless
> you truly enjoy building complex grammatical models in order to understand
> a language, deciding what noun is the recipient of the action ought to
> happen without regard to the grammar of "direct objects".
If you just want to build lists of nouns with labels on them like
"appropriate recipient of {ja'}" and "appropriate recipient of {jatlh}",
then this makes sense. Meanwhile if you actually intend to make sentences
with these words, it becomes convenient to note that the recipient is the
direct object.
If I'm still missing something, I could use some help drawing my attention
more directly to my blind spot. Simply telling me that I'm using the wrong
terms isn't accomplishing your apparent goal. Perhaps if you showed me
recipients that were not direct objects or direct objects that were not
recipients and so forth then I'd better understand.
> >> ...{ja'}
> >> certainly can handle locatives and beneficiaries and reasons and time
> >> markers. The reason you won't see {Hol} as an "othernoun" is
> >> semantic, not
> >> grammatical.
> >
> >Okay. Explain to me what nouns can act as beneficiaries (particularly as
> >indirect objects) for {ja'}. I know I'm rather perplexed by the idea.
>
> I'm going to pretend you didn't use the term "indirect object" here.
Why?
> I
> don't think {ja'} "tell, report" is the kind of verb that has an indirect
> object.
That's exactly my point.
> I suspect your fixation on equating indirect objects and
> beneficiaries is at the root of your inability to find a
> beneficiary to use
> with {ja'}.
>
> lengvaD HoD vIja': matlheD net chaw'.
> nIQvaD vutwI' ja' jabwI': nonlaw' QImmey.
> to'vaD ja' bu': tay'taH Hoch jaghpu'.
Interesting. In all of these cases, I would have used {-'e'} instead of
{-vaD} since they are less the beneficiaries than the topic of the
sentences. Okrand has used {-'e'} both as a topicalizer and as a
focus/emphatic, and more often the latter than the former, but when it has
been the former, it would fit:
leng'e' HoD vIja': matlheD net chaw'.
nIQ'e' vutwI' ja' jabwI': nonlaw' QImmey.
to''e' ja' bu': tay'taH Hoch jaghpu'.
Using the "as for the..." translation for {-'e'}, these make sense to me:
As for the trip, I told the captain: one allows that we depart.
As for breakfast, the waiter told the cook: The eggs are apparently rotten.
As for tactics, the sergeant reported: All of the enemies remain together.
I don't really see them as beneficiaries so much as they set the context for
the sentence that follows. Does breakfast benefit from the act of the cook
speaking?
It is true that there is a "for" in "As for..." and one of the uses of the
English word "for" is to mark the beneficiary, but in this case, I think you
might be stretching things. Or perhaps I simply misunderstand what {-vaD}
does.
> >I've
> >worked on it and unless I begin to refer to a person who commanded me to
> >speak, or a person I'm representing, I can't think of a good
> example of the
> >"right" noun to use with {-vaD} with {jatlh}.
>
> You lost me. {X-vaD jatlh} is how one renders "speak to X".
jIQaghba'. <<X-vaD ja'>> vIHar.
> >And again, looking from my
> >backwards perspective, in your slotless grammar, how to you
> relate the noun
> >{SoQ} to {ja'}? Do you just pull the wild card and throw it,
> suffix-free, at
> >the beginning of the sentence, using the rule Okrand doesn't use
> to put one
> >of those unexplained "other" nouns at the beginning of the
> sentence? Do we
> >use {-mo'}? How do we use {SoQ} with {ja'}? How do we use {Hol}
> with {ja'}?
>
> To answer all these questions, I would first have to ask *why* you want to
> use those words. I can invent something like {SoQvaD che'wI' ja' qonwI'},
> but I'd have to do a lot of handwaving (or give a detailed explanation to
> provide adequate context) around it. It still seems to me that you're
> treating things the wrong way around, asking how to use specific
> words with
> specific grammar before you have an idea you want to express.
I'm simply pointing out what we seem to agree upon. {SoQ} doesn't work very
well with {ja'}. Your example doesn't convince me otherwise and from your
own handling of it, it sounds like you wouldn't be surprised at that.
> >...When I use the
> >word "slot", I'm not talking about a rules-based location in the
> sentence,
> >as you and SuStel seem to be pushing my use of the word to mean.
> I'm talking
> >about potential grammatical relationships between specific nouns and
> >specific verbs. Which function should a specific noun take with
> a specific
> >verb? It is not always as clean-cut as you sugggest, as the
> contrast between
> >{ja'} and {jatlh} so clearly demonstrates.
>
> If you step back a little and stop focusing on "potential grammatical
> relationships", you'll find that a lot of complexity falls away.
What I'm describing doesn't seem as complex to me as you and SuStel are
convinced that it is. I simply take a verb and look at what kinds of
sentences I could build around it. I don't try to make global rules about
verbs based upon the needs of one verb. I simply seek to find what elements
will fit each verb and what nouns and chuvmey can fit into that series of
grammatical structures that for a sentence using that verb.
> Whether
> you recognize it or not, you're imposing an extra layer of trouble by
> insisting on treating the relationships as based on syntax instead of
> semantics.
I'm making sentences, not diagrams or theories. Making sentences requires
dealing with grammar and syntax. Since the verb is the foundation of any
Klingon sentence, I consider the potential grammar for any given verb and
consider what nouns best suit those roles that specific verb supports.
> >If you just study grammar in the abstract without looking at the
> grammatical
> >potentials of specific verbs and the nouns with which they combine...
>
> Studying "abstract grammar" is about as effective as insisting that
> "concrete grammar" is all that matters.
I apologize for suggesting that studying grammar in the abstract does not
lead to insight. I know it does, especially for those beginning with a
language. Meanwhile, as important as idioms or dialects or jargon are in
making any language sound natural and native, you must begin to consider the
potentials of each verb and what nouns can serve in the various grammatical
roles in a sentence based upon that specific verb.
> >, you can
> >never understand how to use {ja'} and {jatlh} and why they are used
> >differently.
>
> Applying the "abstract grammar" to the semantic relationships among words
> is probably more useful than trying to shove the grammatical rules down
> into the realm of meaning the way you're doing it. Instead of the
> enormously complicated model you've built for yourself based on that
> approach, I have a pair of models. One is rather simple and is
> based almost
> entirely on the first half of TKD, representing the nearly mechanical
> translation of concrete ideas to and from Klingon sentences. The other is
> much more fluid and is based on my understanding of the meaning of
> individual words. This second model is the kind of thing you're always
> talking about, except that you insist on including the grammatical rules
> along with the semantic roles, which makes for an exponential explosion of
> complexity as small exceptions meet other small exceptions.
Language explodes with complexity. That's what it does. The elements
function simply and combine to express remarkable variety in meaning. The
elements remain simple, though the combinations of these simple elements
gain complexity and if you try to hold them all in their analysis at once,
yes, it is impossibly complex.
Meanwhile, our eyes are amazing in their capacity to gloss over a wide range
of space in peripheral vision while the focus of our sight is very limited
in scope and very intense in detail. This model very well fits how my
approach to these verbs feels to me. The detail of a specific verb analysis
is simple, but involved. Trying to open the scope to too many verbs at once
does make this mind-boggling, but so long as the breadth is only looked upon
with a light gloss to look for large, obvious patterns and the focus it
sustained on a chosen target, it should not be a problem and to do less is
to avoid a very valuable tool for buildng well formed sentences.
> > You can be easily mystified by their gloss definitions, trying
> >to have those definitions alone explain how and when to use one or the
> >other. Meanwhile, if you study the way that persons addressed are direct
> >objects of {ja'} and indirect objects of {jatlh} and things said
> are direct
> >objects of {jatlh} and have no relationship whatsoever to {ja'}, then you
> >can begin to use {ja'} and {jatlh} well and as you expand the number of
> >words you similarly understand as well, you expand your ability
> to speak the
> >language well.
>
> Understanding what roles words take in relation to each other is
> productive
> even without studying the grammar. I can explain to my sister how {ja'}
> and {jatlh} differ and expect her to understand, even though she probably
> doesn't even know what a direct object is in English, much less Klingon.
I can also explain to an anthropologist what a port address is and an IRQ is
so that she can understand, even though she wouldn't recognize a jumper on a
circuit board even if it were silk-screened with what for me would be
obvious labeling. If your sister wanted to make a sentence with {ja'} or
{jatlh}, she'd have to understand Klingon grammar.
> >What I'm trying to do is focus my attention on that tiny, shining point
> >where the energy of semantics flows into the structure of the
> syntax. It is
> >like static electricity gathered from the air into a wire. Something
> >powerful happens there. If you study floating static electricity
> alone, it
> >is formless. If you study the wiring alone, you never get a
> spark. It is the
> >union where language happens.
>
> I keep seeing your arguments couched more in terms of manipulating the
> shape of the wiring in order to match the form of the floating
> electricity.
It's more like each verb has a prewired box with a series of ports mounted
on it that can be plugged into, so long as the jack fits the port. I prefer
this to just having a soldering gun and some wire with the assignment of
setting up a diagram for the wiring that will handle all varieties of
electricity for various purposes.
> It comes across as trying to model ideas in syntactical ways, which is
> about as easy as trying to use a wire-frame model to explain the Ideal Gas
> Law. It can be done, but it involves lots of special cases and
> uncomfortable stretching to accomodate terms that don't quite apply
> naturally.
I don't know Ideal Gas Law, so I'm at a disadvantage here.
> -- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh
charghwI' 'utlh