tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 11 12:27:20 2000
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Re: Deixis and direction
jIjatlh:
> > > Again, I'm not saying that it MUST be true that you can put all Type
5'd
> > > nouns into the subject position, for example.
jatlh charghwI':
> > Except for {-'e'}, I challenge you to place ANY noun with a Type 5
suffix in
> > the subject position.
jatlh HomDoq:
> I'd like to make it more of a question than a challenge, by
> providing an example. SuStel, would you say that *{qab QongDaq}
> is possibly (NOT necessarily, I understand that) a grammatical
> sentence with a meaning like "The bed's location is bad." ?
In my less-sophisticated version of analysis, there is nothing which
explicitly prohibits such a construction. Nothing known, that is. There is
simply no rule in TKD which says that a noun with a Type 5 suffix cannot be
a subject.
That said, I think it just doesn't happen. Just like all /chuvmey/ are
still just /chuvmey/ to Klingon grammarians even though they work
differently, I think that /DIpmey/ are /DIpmey/, whatever suffixes they have
on them, but they are still used differently. The only /DIpmey/ which are
used in the subject position are those that end in /-'e'/.
If you want to call this syntax, I suppose you can also go up to a Klingon
grammarian and just as validly say that /'ej/ and /QIt/ aren't really the
same type of word. From a traditional Western analysis, this is true, but
to the Klingon grammarian, it isn't. They're both /chuvmey/.
Now, pretending for a moment that I thought /qab QongDaqDaq/ was a
meaningful sentence (which I don't; potentially grammatical, but not
meaningful in any case) what would I make of it? I'm not married to the
idea that "location of the bed" and "in-the-bed" are definitely two
different things, but I do see them that way. /QongDaq Daq/ "location of
the bed" is talking about a location, which is identified by naming the bed.
It is one concept modifying another. /QongDaqDaq/ is a single concept:
"in-the-bed."
As ghunchu'wI' points out, the Type 5 suffix migrates around the
adjectivally-acting verb. /QongDaq letDaq/ "in the hard bed." Is this
still a single concept? I don't think so; it doesn't appear to mean
"in-the-hard-bed" as a single concept. This is, I think, the single best
reason to continue to think of the Type 5 suffixes as syntactic markers as
we'd understand that in English in any way. They can change the meaning of
entire noun phrases.
That said, I still don't see any real difference in grammar between the
following sentences:
puq QupvaD betleH nob HoD.
puq Qupmo' betleH nob HoD.
We don't have one sentence with a syntactically significant indirect object
and one with a syntactically significant reason. We have two sentences with
"header" noun phrases.
jIjatlh:
> > > I'm saying that the rules
> > > don't prohibit it, and that it would explain a thing or two. It
> > > may not be
> > > illegal to put /bIQtIqvo'/ in the subject position for the verb /tuj/,
for
> > > example, but the resulting sentence /tuj bIQtIqvo'/ is semantically
> > > meaningless, at least to Klingons, and thus it does not appear in
> > > the canon.
jatlh HomDoq:
> hmmm, it seems like you dimiss the possibility that this has
> ANY meaning, including "The origin of the river is hot.",
> which, I guess, answers my question above with "No"...
Not exactly. I say it probably doesn't have a valid MEANING, but its
GRAMMAR is not prohibited by the known rules.
> I'm not sure in how far your so-called "in-ness" or "at-ness"
> differs from the object's location as in my *{qab QongDaq} above.
I'm not sure how well I can explain that.
Captain Krankor has claimed that /mIvDaq yIH/ is an acceptable translation
of "cat in the hat" (disregarding the obvious change of situation). I
believe he says it can't be interpreted as a noun-noun construction because
the noun-noun construction prohibits using a Type 5 suffix on the first
noun. Some have claimed that this is valid because it is part of a sentence
fragment.
I tend to reject these arguments. People who use /qIb lengwI'vaD tlhIngan
Hol/ aren't using a sentence fragment; they're trying to literally translate
"Klingon for the Galactic Traveler." The proper Klingon phrase would be
/qIb lengwI' tlhIngan Hol/, using a noun-noun construction. And like this
example, /mIvDaq yIH/ really IS trying to be a noun-noun construction, no
matter how much Krankor wants to deny it. This is a genitive construction,
with /mIvDaq/ "in-the-helmet" as a single concept modifying /yIH/ "tribble."
If one can see how this is really a genitive construction, and therefore a
noun-noun, and therefore illegal according to TKD, one has probably seen
what I mean by the difference between a thing's location and its "in-ness"
or "at-ness." Krankor really wants his phrase to mean "in-the-hat cat," as
opposed to some other kind of cat.
Here's another way to think about it. If you saw /qab QongDaqvo'/ and were
told that you had to give it a meaning, ignoring whether or not it is
allowed, what would you come up with? I'd see it as "From-the-bed is bad."
Whatever that means. /QongDaqvo'/ is not a thing or place like /QongDaqDaq/
is, and is probably easier to grasp as a single concept.
SuStel
Stardate 527.9