tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 10 04:24:21 2001
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Re: Expelling Ambiguity
From: "TPO" <[email protected]>
> roD ram qaS wanI' - usually it occurs at night.
> (sometimes it occurs in the day, but usually at night.)
>
> ram roD qaS wanI' - at night it usually occurs.
> (this event takes place at night, not every night, but usually it does
> occur)
This is related to the question Captain Krankor brings up in HolQeD Volume 9
Number 2: can adverbials modify other adverbials? Only this time, the
question is: can adverbials modify header nouns instead of verbs? Or, does
the scope of an adverbial change depending on where you put it?
While I don't have an answer for that without an extensive check (and who
has time for such a thing these days?), I might offer my opinion that
DloraH's two examples, and Krankor's analysis based on instincts, are
probably influenced by their English lanuage biases. When their instincts
tell them that something works right, it just so happens that the English
translation changes order in exactly the same way (e.g. /roD ram/ "usually .
. . at night," /ram roD/ "at night . . . usually"). Klingon adverbials
might actually work in the same way as English adverbs, but then again they
might not, and English instincts could be leading us astray.
Think, for example, about verb suffixes. Sometimes the order in which they
must appear doesn't "feel" right. And yet, we presume that Klingons have no
problems with the order or, if they don't, it's because they've gotten used
to thinking of a particular /-moH/ verb as a distinct entity.
There is a saving grace here, though: if Okrand has done similar scope
"feeling" while presenting us with Klingon sentences, he may have created
them with a natural-to-English-speakers adverbial order in part because of
his own native language bias. It's a saving grace because at least we'd
find proof of this through some canon somewhere!
SuStel
Stardate 1356.5