tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 06 22:07:35 2001

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RE: Expelling Ambiguity



Good response.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Trimboli [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 12:32 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Expelling Ambiguity
>
>
> jajvetlh quv'e' jIHvaD bIjatlh.
>
>
> From: "Will Martin" <[email protected]>
>
> > My problem is that you have chosen a pile of ambiguous words and
> grammatical
> > constructions which have most likely unintentionally crashed into each
> other
> > in this specific example. The ambiguities:
>
>
> When I wrote the sentence, I wasn't really paying attention to whether it
> was ambiguous or not.  The expulsion of /qel/ was foremost on my mind.  I
> agree very much with your interpretation of the ambiguities,
> though some are
> easily rectified (and others less easily fixed).

Agreed.

> > {jajvetlh} might be a time stamp or a regular noun, possibly a direct
> > object, or in this case, maybe a direct quotation.
>
>
> The only verb in this sentence, /bIjatlh/, has a prefix indicating "no
> object."  So it's very unlikely that /jajvetlh/ is an object.

I spoke poorly. As a generic point in some other sentence, this might have
been a concern, but you are quite right. In this sentence, the ambiguity was
not whether it was a direct object or not. It was whether it was a direct
quotation or not.

> A time stamp IS a regular noun, as far as I know.  When you see a
> noun in a
> "header" position (and we've worked out that it's not an object), without
> any other indication of its contextual meaning (usually with a Type 5 noun
> suffix), and that noun can have a meaning of time, it's pretty likely that
> it's a time stamp for the sentence.

True. I think this was less clear before Okrand explicitly used {jajvam} in
his "good day to die" example. Now, it is established.

> This is one of things I find so interesting about "header space": you toss
> nouns into it like a soup.  You have to be careful what it's made of or
> wrapped in, though.  A location like /vaS'a'/ that isn't a
> subject or object
> gets thrown into the "header soup," but if it's not marked AS a location
> (vaS'a'Daq), the listener doesn't know what it's there for.

...unless the verb is {ghoS} or {jaH} or {leng}, etc.

> And for something really agonizing: I don't see why a time stamp-intended
> noun can't ALSO have a Type 5 noun suffix!  An example:
>
> wa'leS'e' maghIQchoH.  'IH jajvetlh 'e' lupIH muD tej.
> We'll start our vacation tomorrow (as topic).  Meteorologists expect that
> day will be beautiful.

Clever. I like it. I had not considered this, but it works for me.

"As for tomorrow, we begin our vacation." Meanwhile, in my mind, it just
became a topic and stopped being a time stamp.

> (But since we're trying to ELIMINATE ambiguities, let's not go there any
> further!)
>
>
> > {quv'e'} might be a noun with a Type 5 noun suffix, or it might be an
> > adjectival verb inheriting a Type 5 noun suffix from the noun it is
> > modifying, {jajvetlh}.
>
>
> This particular ambiguity, at least, can be eliminated by using /batlh/
> instead of /quv/.
>
> jajvetlh batlh'e' jIHvaD bIjatlh
>
> There's still no way to tell whether /jajvetlh/ and /batlh'e'/ aren't a
> noun-noun construction, or just two nouns near eath other.  But
> at least it
> can't be "that honored day!"  And /batlh/ can't be the adverb,
> because it's
> got a noun suffix on it.

Perfect. Except for the noun-noun thing, which continues to nag.

> > Add that this particular Type 5 noun suffix is known to have two
> > grammatically independent functions in the language. It can either
> indicate
> > the Topic, making it independant of the basic OVS sentence
> structure of a
> > typical sentence, or it can be a focus marker, allowing the
> noun to be the
> > object or subject or head noun, or such. In other words, it sometimes
> > participates in the OVS structure and other times it is
> independent of it.
> > At the beginning of the sentence, you can't always tell, so it
> is a point
> of
> > ambivalence built into the language.
>
>
> To futher muddy the waters, I'm not convinced that a noun with
> /-'e'/ in the
> subject or object positions can't be indicating a topic.  The examples we
> have tend to demonstrate emphasis, but examples aren't conclusive, and the
> examples we have can, in some cases, be interpreted either way.

I can't really argue with you on this. I'm just staying overly conservative,
because, well, SOMEBODY ought to. I feel like I can do without extending the
language here, though I'm definitely uncertain that the language doesn't
stretch past here as you suspect.

> nuH'e' nuD SuvwI'.  jej.  tIq.  HoS.  ghaytan Hoch jaghpu'Daj
> HoHlaH SuvwI'
> lo'chugh.
> The warrior examimed the weapon (topic).  It was sharp, long, and strong.
> The warrior could probably kill all his enemies if he used it.

My problem with this interpretation is that my limited understanding of
"topic" is that it really is best translated as a separate phrase, like "As
for the weapon", which, like the Klingon example we do have explained in
TKD, stands apart from the rest of the sentence. To translate it thusly, we
need apposition. "As for the weapon, the warrior examined it." It doesn't
work to say, "The warrior examined the as for the weapon." Meanwhile, it
definitely works for me to interpret this as "The warrior examined the
WEAPON." That's focus instead of topic, though.

Another way to say it is, "The warrior examined the weapon," doesn't need a
topic. All the words have a reason other than topic to be there and there's
no particular need to arbitrarily assign one of the existing nouns to be the
topic. Meanwhile, if we had instead: {laHDaj'e' nuH nuD SuvwI'}, the action
of sentence is the warrior examining the blade, but the topic is his skill,
which has no grammatical link to the blade or the warrior or the action of
examining, except that we know that the topic of the sentence is his skill
and we then move on to assume that his examining the weapon relates to the
topic of his skill.

I recognize that you are thinking that while my interpretation may be one of
several valid uses of topic, there may be others. You are not interested in
challenging the validity of my interpretation. You want to add to that
another possible use of "topic" so that it does not need to be exclusive.

I'm just not sure that works, and I'm even less convinced that it does
anything really useful even if it does work. I see "topic" as being akin to
the other Type 5 suffixes. When you use {-mo'} or {-vaD} or {-Daq}, you give
a noun a reason to be in the sentence. Except for the weird {-Daq} stuff
with {ghoS} and its ilk, nouns don't act both as subjects or direct objects
and also deal with Type 5 noun suffixes because the grammatical function of
these syntax markers is a different grammatical function than that of
subject or object. The noun only fits in one kind of slot. It fits in a
subject slot or an object slot or a {-vaD} slot or a {-mo'} slot or a topic
slot. When {-'e'} is focus and not topic, the noun with {-'e'} can fit in a
subject or object slot, but not a {-vaD} or a {-mo'} slot, since it can't
take two different Type 5 suffixes.

Please recognize that I'm not trying to invalidate your position as much as
I'm just trying to explain mine. The model I have of the language has these
functional slots into which nouns fit and unless there is a specific
explanation for why a noun gets to fit into two slots at once, I basically
don't even try. {-'e'} as focus is that kind of exception. If the topic is
the same kind of exception, then to be honest, I don't understand the
difference between topic and focus. As soon as topic gets to act as subject
or object, the difference between topic and focus becomes very, very vague.

Maybe you can help me to understand that difference better. I'm open to the
idea.

> But as it is unlikely that one would throw a noun into "header space"
> without some indication of what it was doing there, it seems unlikely that
> one would throw a noun there with only emphasis placed on it.  You don't
> know any more about it now than you did if it didn't have
> empahsis.  If, on
> the other hand, you interpret /-'e'/ as topic, you now know what
> the noun is
> there for.  Generally, header nouns with /-'e'/ only make sense as topics,
> unless the meaning is otherwise clear from context (as with time stamps).

Now, your description perfectly fits my model. If you have a noun in the
"header" space that has {-'e'} on it, it is the topic. If you have a noun
anywhere else with {-'e'} on it, it is focus. It can't be focus if it is in
the header space. It can't be topic if it is anywhere else.

To make it more explicit, according to my model, the subject position is
very much like another Type 5 suffix. The object position is yet another
Type 5 suffix equivalent. You can't have two Type 5 noun suffixes on a noun,
so you can't have a Type 5 suffix on a subject or an object, except for that
pesky focus version of {-'e'}.

Now, does my model of the language make sense to you? I'm not asking so much
if you agree with it than I am if it is at least clear where I'm coming
from. According to my model, the only difference between the positionally
defined syntax functions of nouns and the Type 5 syntax functions of nouns
is that you can use the focus version of {-'e'} on a positionally defined
noun (time stamp, object or subject). Nothing else combines. The rest remain
perpetually separate.

> So we're left with two possible interpretations:
>
> jajvetlh batlh'e' jIHvaD bIjatlh
>
> that day's honor (topic)
> that day, honor (topic)

You haven't dealt yet with the verb {jatlh} and its potential for following
a direct quotation. If you were using any normal verb, your observation
about the prefix {bI-} would be valid. Meanwhile, in this example, this
could still mean:

You said to me, "that day's HONOR". [focus]
You said to me, "As for that day's honor". [topic]
As for honor [topic], that day, you spoke to me."
As for that day's honor [topic], you spoke to me."

> I certainly agree that it's difficult to tell whether the written sentence
> means you told me about that day's honor, or if you told me about
> honor that
> day.  Among us humans (I don't have much data on Klingon speech
> patterns), a
> pause after /jajvetlh/ would solve everything:
>
> jajvetlh, batlh'e' jIHvaD bIjatlh.
> That day, you spoke to me about honor.

As for honor, you said to me, "that day".
You said to me, "That day, HONOR"

If there were some device to indicate that a header is not a direct quote
with the verb {jatlh} it would really make this a lot clearer. All our
examples with {jatlh} either use {Hol} as the direct object, or use direct
quotations with no header, so in canon, there is no ambiguity here because
he never uses {jatlh} with header nouns. You want to do this in order to
indicate indirect quotations. Maybe you are right. I do see where this would
work. If we abandoned the practice of putting a direct quotation in front of
the verb of speech, then we could be sure in this case that it is not a
direct quotation. Canon is dominated by direct quotations that follow the
verb of speech and stylistically, this is better, anyway, because it makes
it clear that the quotation is not the direct object of the verb of speech
and it sets you up to know that you are hearing or reading a quotation and
not just an ordinary statement. The verb of speech is actually acting much
like something that belongs in a header. It gives you context for what
follows.

But that's not how the rules work. By the rules, the verb of speech can
either preceed or follow the direct quotation. Since it can follow the
direct quotation, than any header can easily be mistaken for a direct
quotation.

As a sidebar, I'll point out that Okrand has not given us examples of
headers in the second sentence of a Sentence As Object construction the way
we think it works. I've looked for it, and he always puts the adverb in a
different place than we do. I wince and ignore it because our choice makes
so much more sense than his does according to the rules he has given us. Oh
well.

> > Now, add that you are working with {jatlh}, which can be used
> as a normal
> > verb, or it can be used in the special way that verbs of speech are used
> in
> > direct quotation, meaning that the verb of speech is grammatically
> > independent of that which is being quoted. In other words,
> maybe {jajvetlh
> > quv'e'} is a direct quotation, or maybe it is just a pair of
> header nouns
> > for {jatlh} being used intransitively. We can't tell.
>
>
> True, but if /jajvetlh batlh'e'/ is a quotation, or even
> /jajvetlh quv'e'/,
> it doesn't seem to say much.  Keep in mind that this sentence
> would be said
> in a larger context.

This is always true, and the only real solution for ambiguity. Then again,
sometimes things are irreparably ambiguous.

> > So, basically, I like the idea that you are promoting, but the specific
> > example you came up with is so rife with ambiguity as to not carry any
> real
> > meaning without a lot more context.
>
>
> Context would certainly help a lot more.  I think the thought
> process I went
> through to demonstrate that the ambiguities are manageable is too complex
> for quick interpretation when it's written out, though I do think
> that if I
> walked up to you and said /jajvetlh, . . . **batlh'e'** jIHvaD (point to
> myself) bIjatlh (point to you)/, you'd understand immediately.  I have a
> tendency to leave out punctuation when writing Klingon.

It's a common practice.

> > Actually, looking at it, this sentence is a shining star of ambiguity.
> Four
> > words form a sentence with either five or seven radically different
> meanings
> > (depending on whether you think the Topic/Focus ambiguity in
> the first two
> > translations above to merit separate meanings). I'd be hard pressed to
> come
> > up with an example with that efficient of a combination of ambiguous
> factors
> > in the language. It's really beautiful, in a dark, twisted kind of way.
>
>
> :)
>
>
> Hurghbogh SuStel 'ej tlhe'pu'bogh
> Stardate 1343.4

Quite an image, that.

charghwI'



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