tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 09 01:44:58 2000
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RE: Deixis and direction
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Trimboli [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 11:56 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Deixis and direction
>
>
> jatlh charghwI':
> > "... denoting the syntactic relation of these words... by the form or
> > position..."
> >
> > The suffixes constitute the form of the words and do indicate the
> syntactic
> > relationship between the suffixed noun and its verb. They are definitely
> > "syntactic markers". Syntax does not refer only to the order of
> the words,
> > but also the form of the words. You seem to think this form element
> doesn't
> > count, but that syntax only refers to word order. I've noticed this in a
> > couple of other posts as well. Am I misinterpreting something or
> > misremembering something?
>
> I am aware that form is also a part of syntax. What I am
> apparently failing
> at is successfully expressing why I'm saying the form of the
> "header" nouns
> is semantic, not syntactic.
Your argument is very interesting. As stated this time, it is certainly more
interesting than it has been up to this point.
> > > but I can certainly see the argument stating
> > > that nouns with /-Daq/ are inflected for a Locative case, and
> nouns with
> > > /-vaD/ are inflected for a Dative case.
> > >
> > > However, my point is that these inflections aren't relevant to the
> grammar
> > > of the non-subject, non-object nouns.
> >
> > I honestly do not understand this statement. I see these inflections as
> > being the ONLY relevant thing connecting the nouns to the grammar of the
> > sentence.
>
> These things have a semantic connection, not a syntactic one,
> when one sees
> it my way.
>
> Consider the following two sentences:
>
> SoQ jatlh HoD.
> SoQ ja' HoD.
>
> The first one means "The captain made a speech." The second
> means something
> like "The captain said something to a speech." The second sentence is
> jibberish.
>
> However, the second sentence is NOT jibberish because of its syntax. Its
> syntax is exactly correct: object-verb-subject. The problem is semantic.
> The noun /SoQ/ doesn't make any sense when used as the object of the verb
> /ja'/, but that doesn't mean it's syntactically incorrect. Any
> simple noun
> can be put into the object position, but not every simple noun will make
> sense there.
Well put. I do try to specify grammatical potentials specific to the verb
for a reason, though I recognize that it is not a traditional approach.
> The same thing can happen in English. "I pinched the nebula." This is a
> perfectly valid English sentence. And it's meaningless. One
> does not pinch
> a nebula. (And if you tried to come up with some bizarre
> situation in which
> one could pinch a nebula, I could come up with an equally bizarre
> reason why
> the captain might talk to his speech.)
All you've said up to this point is quite valid. I might argue for another
approach, but I don't see either approach as exclusively right or wrong.
Different angles of analysis can be quite insightful.
> One of the interesting aspects of this line of reasoning, by the way, is
> that it follows that there's no reason why ANY noun can't be the object of
> /ja'/, however meaningless that object might be. There's
> certainly no rule
> that says that Type 5'd nouns can't be the object of any verb.
TKD page 26, Section 3.3.5, Type 5: Syntactic markers
"These suffixes indicate something about the function [not meaning] of the
noun in the sentences. As in English, subjects and objects are normally
indicated by the position of the noun or nouns in the sentences... in
Klingon, nouns which indicate somethign other than subject or object usually
must have some special indication of exactly what that function is. Unlike
English, this is accomplished by using suffixes."
Page 60, Section 6.1: Basic sentences
"Any noun in the sentences indicating something other than subject or object
comes first, before the object noun. Such nouns usually end in a Type 5
snoun suffix."
This seems to indicate fairly clearly that Type 5 suffixed nouns do not
function as direct objects or subjects (with the obvious exception of {-'e'}
in a couple cases).
> However, if
> I tried to say
>
> pa'Daq jatlh HoD,
>
> and told you that /pa'Daq/ was not a "header noun" (if it were,
> it'd have to
> be /pa'/, anyway), one might conclude that /pa'Daq/ was the OBJECT of the
> sentence. Now, you and I both agree that /pa'Daq jatlh HoD/ is a
> meaningless sentence which doesn't occur in the language, but you would
> probably claim that it's syntactically incorrect to put a locative noun in
> the object position (because it belongs in a locative position), whereas I
> claim that a noun is a noun is a noun, and it's merely that the object
> /pa'Daq/ is meaningless for the verb /jatlh/. Not that it is
> syntactically
> incorrect. After all, one cannot speak an "in-the-room."
Your idea is interesting, but it definitely does not fit anything Okrand
wrote in TKD. He explicitly speaks of FUNCTION being modified by the suffix,
not MEANING.
> Now, perhaps there IS a Klingon rule which states that a noun
> with a Type 5
> suffix (aside from /-'e'/) generally cannot be the object noun. This rule
> does not appear in The Klingon Dictionary to the best of my knowledge.
See above.
> Heck, there's no rule which says that one of these nouns can't
> appear in the
> subject position! Now, see below for the really cool part.
I'm looking, but again, you've already stepped out of bounds from Okrand's
descriptions in TKD. He says that Type 5 suffixes give the nouns a function
different from subject or object.
> jatlh charghwI':
> > I can see why, for a certain abstraction of the grammar, it might be
> useful
> > to group together these different grammatical functions as you have, but
> to
> > declare that differentiating among them is baseless is a bold statement
> that
> > I find useless.
>
> There are quite a number of reasons why this interpretation is good and
> helpful.
>
> For one thing, it explains the "exceptional" verbs of motion.
> Maybe they're
> not so exceptional after all, syntactically speaking. Maybe with the
> suggestion that my theory leads to as described above, that there's no
> *syntactic* reason why a Type 5'd noun can't be the object of any
> old verb,
> we can now understand that the special thing about the verbs of motion is
> that they are the only verbs for which Type 5'd nouns (specifically, those
> with /-Daq/) in the object position make *semantic* sense. The syntax of
> these verbs is exactly the same; they just have nouns allowed as objects
> which aren't allowed as objects on other verbs. Again, this "allowed" is
> semantic, or meaning, in nature, not syntactic.
I can see where this perspective will naturally feel very new, refreshing
and interesting, but the simple truth is that in language, grammatical rules
have exceptions applied to specific words. Rules are created to describe
observed grammer, but the grammar itself is not (except in linguistically
reworked languages like Turkish) really the origin of the use of the words.
It goes the other way, so the rules will always have exceptions.
The verbs of motion are simply exceptions to an otherwise remarkably
consistent rule that verbs can't take Type 5 suffixed nouns as either
subject or object.
> Another thing this theory does is explain some controversy about /-'e'/.
> I've been forced to agree that while Okrand calls /-'e'/ a
> topicalizer, his
> examples use it as an emphasis. Notice that while he never
> declares /-'e'/
> different than the other Type 5 nouns, we have somehow
> artificially decided
> that it works differently? That's our judgement, not Okrand's.
Okrand has agreed that {-'e'} is used both as a topicalizer and for focus or
emphasis. He has acknowledged that this was not described clearly in TKD.
> But
> suppose, just suppose, that our friends the Type 5'd nouns all
> work exactly
> the same way: as a noun, and a noun is a noun is a noun.
>
> First, we see that there's no reason to call /-'e'/ different than the
> others: since we're supposing that all Type 5'd nouns have the
> potential of
> appearing as the subject or object of a verb, we no longer consider /-'e'/
> to be an exception to the rules. It works exactly the same way.
It works the same way, if you consider Okrand to be ignorant of the
grammatical function of words in a language he created. I personally doubt
that.
> It's just
> that its meaning, that of emphasis or topic, doesn't add a meaning which
> changes its suitability to be a subject or object. /-Daq/, for instance,
> add "in-ness" or "at-ness" to a noun, and doing something to a thing's
> "in-ness" or "at-ness" is different than doing something to the thing
> itself. However, emphasis doesn't add something to the noun which
> interferes with its meaning in the sentence. Thus, /-'e'/s as
> subjects and
> objects are common.
So, I suppose that in English, you consider a prepositional phrase to be a
noun. It is just a noun with a modified meaning. The phrase, "due to the
weather" is also grammatically a noun, by your analysis.
> Next, although we haven't seen an example (and there haven't been many
> sentences I can think of where Okrand would have wanted to do
> this), it's ve
> ry, very possible that the following would make for a good
> Klingon sentence:
>
> Duj'e' baHwI' vIHoH.
> On the subject of the ship, I killed the gunner.
Good.
> The topic is the ship, and since the ship indicates something
> other than the
> subject or the object of the sentence (the subject is /jIH/ and the object
> is /baHwI'/), that noun becomes a "header" noun. In this particular
> sentence, you can't misinterpret this as "I killed the ship's gunner,"
> because the noun-noun construction doesn't allow for Type 5'd nouns as the
> first noun. You wouldn't say /Duj baHwI' vIHoH/, "The ship, I killed the
> gunner" (although this time, "I killed the ship's gunner" means basically
> the same thing, but that's not relevant here), because you have
> not given an
> indication of what the ship has to do with the sentence.
Right. You have not revealed its grammatical function. Which is exactly my
point.
> Now, as far as topics go, I haven't given them much thought until
> recently,
> and I'm willing to admit that my example sentence may not be the best one.
> I think, however, that this is why we don't often see topics as "header
> nouns": it's hard to think of a topic which isn't also a subject
> or object.
I don't quite believe that. Most of the time, when {-'e'} is on the subject
or object, it marks the focus/emphatic meaning and not the topic. If a word
that already has another grammatical function than topic is also the topic,
it usually doesn't need to be pointed out. The topicalizer is mostly needed
for cases where there is a topic that is not otherwise mentioned in the
sentence. A good canon example was ghunchu'wI's quoting ST5 saying, "You are
the best gunner." The grammar allows you to say, "You are the best", but
there is no way to say, "You are the best gunner". There is no hole in the
grammar into which "gunner" can be inserted except as topic. "As for
gunners, you are the best."
Perhaps the best translation for "I am seven of nine" is"
Hut'e' Soch jIH.
> Thirdly, my interpretation avoids the amazing acrobatics you have to do to
> understand Klingon with the differentiated syntax approach.
Thank you. No one has ever referred to me as an amazing acrobat before. I
like it. Such compliments!
> You
> say it's a
> puzzle you like, and I understand that, but I don't think it's the way
> Klingons would like it.
"What would Kruge do?" [new montra for Klingon cult]
> They've got Nouns, Verbs, and Everything Else.
> They like bluntness and simplicity. You often correctly point out how
> Klingon is not as sidewinding as English. Why then would they have this
> dizzying array of extra stuff?
I guess one of the skills of an amazing acrobat is a high resistance to
dizziness.
> See also my second-next paragraph
> regarding
> Klingons and their linguistics.
>
> >You seem to be describing things less than you are judging
> > them. Differences in grammatical function obviously exist.
> That's why they
> > require different sections to describe them in TKD. But you are
> singularly
> > judging these differences as meaningless, as if anyone disagreeing with
> your
> > uncommon judgement is invalid.
>
> I am doing no singular judging. I have repeated over and over that I have
> theories. I am illustrating. I do believe that YOU judge a lot, because
> anytime someone like me comes up with a different idea like this, you do
> your best to impose your own interpretations on them. This disturbs me.
I apologized for disturbing you. That is genuinely not my goal. My
alternative personna obviously needs a personality transplant. I'll meditate
on this for a while.
> In any case, I do NOT believe that The Klingon Dictionary is a
> prescriptive
> document. I believe it is meant to be descriptive. It provides
> us with the
> basic rules that Klingon grammarians accept as rules, and then it
> describes
> it as Terran linguists try to understand it. This is what I'm
> trying to do:
> trying to work out what Klingon linguists see, and determine how
> it differs
> from what we've BEEN doing. When TKD shows us locative nouns as "header"
> nouns, it's not saying "locative nouns must be header nouns," it's saying,
> "Here's what we Terran linguists have observed: locative nouns seem to
> appear as header nouns." TKD admits its rules are basic. Not, I think,
> just because it fails to bring up the more complex rules, although it
> certainly does fail to do this occasionally, but also because
> Okrand wanted
> us to recognize that this is the observed behavior of Klingon, not the
> rules, and things may not work exactly as the observed behavior up to that
> point indicated.
I'm repeatedly accused of creating rules when I consider a verb and consider
how its meaning allows or disallows the fulfillment of part of the generic
grammatical structure of a basic Klingon sentence and what nouns can be used
for those various functions. I'm at least as bothered by that accusation as
anything I've said about the way your theory ignores one of the more
explicit descriptions Okrand gives of grammar in TKD.
> And this is also a good reason why Okrand always talks about what "works"
> instead of what's "right" and "wrong." Sure, he doesn't want to paint
> himself into a wall,
That's an interesting variation on the cliche of painting oneself into a
corner. The imagery is quite interesting.
> but I think he's also saying that because it's not so
> much whether the rules say it's right or wrong, but whether the proposed
> idea "works." "I pinch the nebula" is "right," but it doesn't "work."
>
> That's the bulk of my post, but I've got a couple of quick reponses to
> things you brought up below.
>
> > > > > /loD/ = NOMINATIVE.
> > > > > /betleH/ = ACCUSATIVE. Since there is no inflection, I don't know
> if
> > > these
> > > > > are worth two cases or not.
> >
> > They are. Klingon simply uses different syntax for marking
> these different
> > cases. In this case, syntax is not indicated by form of the word, but
> > instead by word order. In English, "The ball hit the wall," the ball is
> > still nominative and the wall is still accusative. Reverse the order of
> the
> > nouns and though the form of these words has not changed, their case has
> > been changed.
>
> As I've indicated in posts, this is one reason why I started to think the
> traditional idea of case doesn't really makes much sense in
> Klingon at all.
> If these two were considered the same case, there wouldn't be
> much point to
> the distinction. If you talked about one, you might just as well
> be talking
> about the other. Now, I'm not saying that there IS no distinction at all,
> I'm just saying I don't know if the distinction would make a difference.
You don't see the distinction between the nominative (subject) and
accusative (object)?
> I'm not sure traditional cases have much to do with Klingon. It
> just works
> differently.
>
> > You've generalized your abstraction of the grammar, tossing out some
> detail.
> > That is fine to do where it serves a purpose, but I really
> don't think it
> is
> > cool to declare this the new valid structural analysis, so all
> older stuff
> > should be rejected. I do look forward to the positive growth of
> > understanding that this abstraction creates, especially when used
> alongside
> > more detailed, differentiated analysis.
>
> I chose a level of abstraction which served to illustrate my point. If I
> had chosen some other level, my point would have been difficult to see
> (though still there).
I would not have had a problem with that. My problem was with your
declarative style by which you disrespected any other analysis of Klingon
grammar.
> Why can't I declare a new valid structural analysis? Why isn't that cool?
Mostly, the uncool part was your declaring that all other analysis was
WRONG.
> Why must I conform to the way YOU decide things? Make no mistake: you're
> the only one arguing with me about this.
Likely, this is mostly the case that people don't like our insulting,
agressive style and they don't want to READ what we write, let alone REPLY
to it.
Meanwhile, I know that ghunchu'wI' doesn't like my alternative analysis
(which I never claimed was exclusively valid, unlike your description of
your system which definitely included the all caps word "WRONG" in a few
places, referring to all the other systems that were suddenly obsolete when
you had your revellation).
So, ghunchu'wI': Do you really believe that Type 5 suffixes affect only the
semantics of a noun and not its grammatical function in a sentence? Do you
agree with SuStel that when Okrand referred to Type 5 suffixes as
"Syntactical markers" he was wrong?
pagh? ~mark? Krankor? Anybody? Am I really the only person who doesn't find
this just a little bit unlikely to be a useful approach to the language?
> I'm not imposing my view on
> anyone. If someone chooses to agree with me, I'll feel gratified. If
> someone chooses to disagree with me, I'll be disappointed. If someone
> chooses to argue with me, I'll explain or defend as I feel necessary.
Oh.
> > Then again, we could generalize a step further:
> >
> > [<Extra stuff>... <extra stuff>] Verb [<Extra stuff>... <extra stuff>]
> >
> > Things in brackets are optional. Of course, this model doesn't handle
> > comparison constructions or exclammatory words, though it has the
> advantage
> > over your model in that it also encompasses all dependent
> clauses, chuvmey
> > and traditional toasts.
>
> I wasn't trying to encompass all of the Klingon sentence structures. As I
> stated several times in several posts, I presented a simplified structure,
> leaving out some bits, in order to make my point. My model is
> not THE model
> of Klingon, it is the model of what I'm trying to point out.
This is a much more reasonable statement. As I've said repeatedly, I like
the idea of approaching analysis from different perspectives. What ruffles
my fur is agressively judgemental declarations that all old methods of
analysis are WRONG and this cool new way of looking at things is uniquely
insightful and really the way things work.
Likely, you are not even aware of how strongly you put down all ideas except
your current interest. You used to see things more conventionally, but you
outgrew all that and now you see how wrong we've all been all these years.
[sigh]
If you don't want me to argue with you, present your ideas as reasonably as
you just did. Say, "This is another way at looking at things that might
offer some insight." You don't have to put down other approaches in order to
get positive attention. In fact, you lower your likelihood of success when
you do so.
But that's just my opinion, and I'm also quite aware that I'm not a very
good citizen by my own criteria. I'd like to be better, but I seem to
repeatedly lose my way. I need to be more loyal to my own goals.
> SuStel
> Stardate 515.2
charghwI'