tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 20 17:22:33 2004
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Re: Klingon WOTD: toy'wI''a' (n)
- From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Klingon WOTD: toy'wI''a' (n)
- Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 10:21:55 +1000
- Bcc:
ghItlhpu' De'vID:
>But none of these sentences are using <pagh> in the sense of
>"or (else)" seen in, for example, "Buy or die!" In English,
>"X or (else) Y" can mean "if you don't X, then you will Y". This
>is an idiomatic usage that doesn't necessarily carry across to
>other languages. (For example, "or" in Chinese doesn't have
>this connotation. If you say "You will buy or you will die",
>you're saying that one or the other will happen, but there's
>no implication that failure to do the one will result in the
>other.)
In the (hypothesised) {DIHIvbej pagh qo'chajDaq toy'wI''a' DImoj}, two
options are presented. The way I see it is that one of these options *will*
happen, but not both. Therefore, the implication is that if one does not
happen, the other *must* happen.
If you'll permit me a jump into a different field, I think of {pagh} as a
Boolean XOR (and, incidentally, {'ej} as Boolean AND and {joq} as Boolean
OR). The behaviour of an XOR gate is such that for a positive result to come
out the other end, one or the other of the options must occur, but not both.
0 XOR 0 => 0
1 XOR 0 => 1
0 XOR 1 => 1
1 XOR 1 => 0
In the same way, if we assume that the sentence has a positive logical
conclusion (= 1), then if {DIHIvbej} does not happen, {qo'chajDaq toy'wI''a'
DImoj} must. In English, we express this as "either...or": in that
construction, one of the options will definitely happen - it's just a matter
of which one. "Either you eat or you will die." The same thing happens in
the example Voragh gave: {vIpollaH pagh vIpolHa'laH}. It's eminently clear
(to me) in this sentence that if you don't do the first, by definition you
must do the second.
Of course, that's just my take on the whole thing. The Chinese example puts
a bit of hair on this one. Is the Chinese "or" a logical OR or a logical
XOR?
Savan.
QeS lagh
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' qan je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
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