tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jul 25 00:30:17 2001

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RE: Research question concerning negation

Before we start here, I want to make it clear that I'm just having fun with
this. When something becomes overly analyzed, it generally disintegrates, or
as I used to say in my more poetic youth: "If you disect a frog, it croaks."
Herein, the frog definitely croaks.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2001 3:32 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Research question concerning negation
>
>
> >I'd like to know everything about Klingon negation: Why it works, why
> >it doesn't work, why it works how it works etc.
> >You should probably answer to my address and not to the list. I'll
> >publish a summary of the results.
> >I'm really looking forward to your thoughts!
>
> What is the deal with -be'? The problem, if there is one, is very subtle.
> It's as expressive as its natural language counterparts, but there's a lot
> that hasn't been explained (decided) about it yet. For instance,
> what do you
> do when negating nouns?
>
> (1) Soj   Sambe'    puq
>     FOOD  FIND-NOT  CHILD
>     "A/the child did not find any/the food."
>
> Note the ambiguity. It's impossible to tell the implication of
> the negation,
> i.e. where the focus lies. It could be any of the following three
> implications:
>
> (1a) A/The child did not find any/the food. He went hungry instead.
> (1b) A/The child did not find any/the food. She found (the) X instead.
> (1c) A/The child did not find any/the food. X found it instead.

While I can see your point, I don't think this really qualifies as
ambiguity. Remove the negation and you get exactly the same need for context
to fully understand the statement. {Soj Sam puq.} What is the question that
the statement answers? {nuq Sam puq? Soj Sam 'Iv? nuq Sam 'Iv? And I'm
having difficulty asking in Klingon, "What did the child do with the food?"
Interesting problem. We don't have any question words that replace a verb in
a sentence. Okrand has missed an opportunity to come up with a question word
in Klingon that doesn't exist in English. Now THAT would have been
interesting.

Anyway, my point is that your presumption of ambiguity here has very little
to do with negation. It is just as effective if applied to the positive
statement. In either case, you are seeking more specificity than was offered
in the original statement, negative or positive.

> In (1a) it is the verb "Sam" that is being negated; in (1b) it is the noun
> "Soj"; and in (1c) it is the noun "puq".

Not really. In all three cases, it is {Sam} that is being negated. It
doesn't matter if the child found something other than the food. He still
does not find the food. It doesn't matter if the food is found by someone
other than the child. The child still fails to find the food. It is always
the finding that is being negated. Your focus on the nouns merely explains
in more detail why the verb is being negated. You don't negate a noun. You
don't even do that in English, except in very marked speech, like "I found
the not-food". The prefix "non-" comes close, as in "I found the non-food",
but note that it typically requires a hyphen. This is marked speech. You
really need to pause to parse it well because it is not a normal statement.

> The appropriate implication might
> come from context. But since Klingon has a perfectly good focus
> marker, and
> we Klingon speakers have used it in the past to alleviate ambiguity (cf.
> -bogh), it seems natural here.

I started off thinking this was great use of {-'e'} and was interested in
playing with the difference between {-'e'} as focus and {-'e'} as topic,
since it apparently works both ways. Then the frog croaked.

> If -'e' is understood as focus marker (as it usually is except in copular
> constructions) then its use in each of (2a, 2b, 2c) would limit the
> implication to (1a, 1b, 1c) resp.
>
> (2a) Soj Sambe' puq.   OR   Soj Samqu'be' puq.

To me, {Soj Samqu'be' puq} means the child found the food, but it's not a
really big deal. Like he stumbled into it and discovered it, but he wasn't
really looking for it all that much and didn't really want it after he found
it. He basically didn't have his heart in it, like maybe his mother asked
him to do it and he'd really rather be playing war with the guys down the
street. I think {Soj Sambe' puq} works just fine. Adding {-qu'} doesn't
help.

> (2b) Soj'e' Sambe' puq.

Note that this is ambiguous because it could mean either (focus) "The child
didn't find THE FOOD" or (topic) "As for the food, the child didn't find
it." Note that both interpretations are somewhat ambiguous by your argument.
In the focus version maybe the child found something, but it wasn't the
food, or maybe the child found nothing and we are all hungry and ticked off
about it because all we can now think about is THE FOOD.

The second version ("As for the food, the child didn't find it") is quite
ambiguous. Maybe someone else found it. Maybe nobody found it. For that
matter, we might be cannibals talking about a kid we gave specific
instructions to go find something, but who failed to follow our instructions
to go find something, so now, we intend to eat him. It is purely a cultural
reference that stops us from accepting {puq} as the noun for the food which
is the topic of the sentence. Consider {tlhIngan'e' 'el wa' loD.} "As for
klingons, one man entered." Clearly the man is a Klingon. The child can be
food.

> (2c) Soj Sambe' puq'e'.

That's focus and it works. "THE CHILD didn't find the food." Note that the
meaning doesn't change if we use topic instead:

puq'e' Soj Sambe'. "As for the child, he didn't find the food.

Although, I guess since I brought it up, you COULD consider the child to be
the food that was not found by some other subject...

> This is not a very common use of -'e', but it seems natural to
> me. Of course
> since it's not canon, other people may want to debate it endlessly. (I
> don't!) I am merely expressing a perceived ambiguity of -be' and
> a possible
> alleviation of that ambiguity.

It is a very interesting idea. I've had fun poking holes at it, but in
truth, I think that, so long as we don't examine it too closely or try to
make too many profound statements about what it definitely means, this can
be very useful for making concise, clear Klingon statements.

> --Andrew Strader
>   "How are you gentlemen? All your base are belong to us."
>   http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~strader

charghwI'

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