tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 07 16:35:32 2001
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Re: Klingon WOTD: ghorgh (ques)
ja' ~mark:
>,,,Taking the first sentence as a question,
>we get {ghorgh Haw' HoD? 'e' vISov} (note that I'm deliberately punctuating
>as two sentences, since after all that's what they are.) "When did the
>captain flee? I know that." Krankor says it's like the first sentence
>"throws up a lob" for the second to answer, like a rhetorical question.
>The stretch involved is extending {'e'} in cases like this to mean "(the
>answer to) that" instead of just "that," which, pragmatically, isn't
>unreasonable.
Pragmatism has its uses, especially when trying to interpret a particular
phrase. However, I think using this schema to express ideas warps the
grammar as we know it. For the sake of argument, I'll accept rhetorical
questions. But if you want to refer to the answer to such a question,
there's no reason not to use a word which does it explicitly. Why co-opt
{'e'} for the purpose when you can do it much more clearly by following the
rules as given?
ghorgh Haw' HoD? rep (jaj joq) vISov.
qatlh Haw' HoD? meq vISov.
chay' Haw' HoD? mIw (nab joq) vISov.
nuqDaq Haw' HoD? Daq vISov.
'arlogh Haw' HoD? mI' vISov.
This is fundamental enough, and wide-reaching enough, that I'd consider
doing an article in HolQeD about it -- except that it wouldn't be longer
than two or three paragraphs.
My basic point is that {'e'} is a pronoun with a very narrow purpose. That
purpose is not defined to let it "answer" a rhetorical question. I'm
uncomfortable with the idea of letting real-world usage so strongly
override the published rules of the language.
However...
>(Similarly, for "The captain knows if the prisoner has
>escaped", I'd say {narghpu''a' qama'? 'e' Sov HoD} and NOT anything with
>{-chugh}, as a raw English calque would have).
This sort of construction is one reason I cannot reject questions as
objects completely. We don't have a "yes/no answer" word to use as the
object of a {Sov} sentence. [Didn't the lojban "community" deal with a
similar issue by applying an explicit patch to the language?] However, in
this particular case, I think the uncontroversial solution is rather
trivial:
narghpu''a' qama'? janglaH HoD.
The other reason I don't have a campaign to stamp out QAO is the existence
of indirect questions such as "I know who escaped." This isn't *quite* in
the realm of relative clauses. It isn't the same as "I know the prisoner
who escaped." The phrasing I'd use for this specific example is similar to
above:
narghpu' 'Iv? jIjanglaH.
But I can't convince myself that the general concept is that easy.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh