tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 31 08:03:25 2001
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Re: QAO (was: I had an idea, I don't know how...)
- From: "Agnieszka Solska" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: QAO (was: I had an idea, I don't know how...)
- Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 13:03:24
ja' Sean Healy:
:Klingon is not English, and there are natural languages
:where such a construction is perfectly valid.
:Finnish:
:Miksi hän on lakannut? En osaa selittää miksi hän on lakannut.
Such constructions are also perfectly valid in Polish and French. However,
this merely proves the construction exists in some languages. It tells us
nothing about Klingon.
Polish (diacritics missing):
Dlaczego stanal?
Nie umiem wyjasnic dlaczego stanal.
French:
Pourquoi est-il s'arreté?
Je ne peux pas expliquer pourquoi il est s'arreté.
: don't know if anyone else on this list has ever had to deal with X-bar
:syntax (an interesting notion, but I never saw any practical use for
:it),but in X-bar syntax, a question is parsed exactly as any other
:sentence.
For whatever it is worth to anyone, in an X-bar notation, Klingon sentences
would probably end up with empty COMPLEMENTIZER nodes.
:My notions of grammaticality are heavily influenced by my studies in
:linguistics; that may be where our difference in the interpretation of
:a question as a sentence originates.
According to D. Crystal's (1985) _Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics_:
STATEMENT
A term used in the classification of SENTENCE FUNCTIONS, and defined
sometimes on GRAMMATICAL and sometimes on SEMANTIC or SOCIOLINGUISTIC
grounds. (...) Semantically, Ii is used primarily to convey information. The
term is usually contrasted with major sentence functions: QUESTION, COMMAND,
EXCLAMATION.
QUESTION
A term used in the classification of SENTENCE FUNCTIONS, and defined
sometimes on GRAMMATICAL and sometimes on SEMANTIC or SOCIOLINGUISTIC
grounds. (...) Semantically, questions express a desire for more
information, usually requesting a reply from the listener (...) The term is
usually contrasted with three other major sentence functions: STATEMENT,
COMMAND and EXCLAMATION.
Perhaps QAO should not be "dismissed out of hand" but their status
will remain unclear until we see them in the corpus or until Okrand
says: "No way!"
ja' ghunchu'wI' 'utlh:
:A question is a sentence WHICH ASKS A QUESTION. That's enough of a
:reason for me to consider it ungrammatical as the first part of a
:statement.
While not taking sides in the debate, I'd like to point out that if we were
to discover that QAO is a legitimate construction, it would have to appear
not only as the first part of a statement (as in hypothetical 1a) but also
as the first part of a question formed from that statement (as in
hypothetical 1b)
(1a)? qatlh mev 'e' luSov (They know why he stopped.)
(1b)? qatlh mev 'e' luSov'a' (Do they know why he stopped?)
From what I see, the two diverse positions on QAO can be summed up as
follows:
The up-with-QAO position:
#1: The pronoun 'e' can replace a sentence. A question is a sentence,
therefore 'e' can replace it.
#2: Okrand never explicitly banned QAO.
Bottom line: A structure that is not explicitly banned should be permitted.
The down-with-QAO position:
#1: It is irrelevant that a question is a sentence.
#2: Okrand never explicitly permitted or used QAO.
Bottom line: A structure that is not explicitly permitted should be banned.
lugh 'Iv?
vuD vIHutlh jIH 'ach
janglaH QAO HarwI': 'e' vISovbe'.
janglaH QAO HarHa'wI': lughwI' vIngu'laHbe'.
'ISqu'
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