tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 21 07:54:35 2005
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: comparative as question
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
jang ter'eS, ja':
>>'ach vIparqu'. I don't have any problem with the
>>{raSvam'e' raSvelth'e' je} part, but the rest just looks
>>wrong. The {latlh} seems the wrong choice: ?"which one
>>is the big one, the other is the small one". I'd
>>repeat the {nuq} if I was going to use this: ?"which one
>>is the big one, which one is the small one". Mixing an interrogative and a
>>positive like this just looks weird.
>I wouldn't have said so. In English, we can say "which is bigger than the
>other?", and I suppose if we were still treating the comparative construct
>as two sentences, then we'd have to use {nuq} twice - but I would say that
>{nuq tIn law' latlh tIn puS} is better translated as "what is big *while*
>the other is small?", since the whole thing is one unsplittable connected
>unit in modern Klingon.
>>That initial {nuq} seems wrong, too. I realize that
>>it can fit in the N slot, since it's a noun, but it's
>>really being used like an adjective: "as for this table
>>and that table, _which one_ is the big one...". And we
>>know from MO's past comments that you can't use {nuq}
>>with an adjectival meaning like that.
>That's a valid point. But would you permit {nuq tIn law' latlh tIn puS} on
>its own (ignoring the issue with {latlh})? The meaning there is "what is
>bigger than the other(s)?" Since {raSvam'e' raSvetlh'e' je} is a header,
>{nuq} is not actually grammatically tied to either of them, so can still
>function as a normal question word, IMHO. {nuq} is only linked to {raSvam'e'
>raSvetlh'e' je} semantically, not grammatically. All that's happening is
>that the scope of {nuq} is being limited. I see it as similar to the English
>utterance "What do you want to drink, lemonade or beer?"
I think my points sort of appeared backwards in my original post. Basically,
I don't think you can use {nuq} at all to select something out of stated
alternatives. Ironically, I'd probably be more open to {nuq} if the question was more
open-ended. But the fact is that in this case you are comparing two things
(what else does the {law'/puS} construction do?), and MO has already indicated
that you can't use {nuq} to select one out of a set of stated alternatives, and
instead gave us the {X yIngu'} construction to do that. The original canon
in question was {nuq mI'lIj} "what is your number?" from one of the tapes. This
is a case of selecting one thing (your room number) out of a finite set (all
the room numbers in the hotel). So for a long time we thought that {nuq} could
also mean "which (one)". But MO eventualy said we were wrong.
{latlh} definitely sets up an alternative (one is big, one is small). I just
don't think {nuq...latlh} is valid at all. I could accept {nuq...nuq} if the
choice of possible answers was wide open: {nuq tIn law' nuq tIn puS}, which could
have all sorts of answers, depending on context. But this is a clunky and
potentially over-ambiguous construction, which leads me to my otherr point,
which is that I don't think Klingons would use this to form comparision
questions at all.
>>I sent an alternative at the beginning of this thread that
>>I don't think ever made it to the list. If it did, I
>>apologize for repeating myself. How about:
>>tIn raSvam. 'ach tInqu''a' raSvetlh?
>It's good, but it still lacks the idea of comparison that's captured by the
>{A Q law' B Q puS} construct. Or rather, the comparison here is implicit,
>not explicit.
My point was that I don't think you can use {law'/puS} as a question like
this at all. If so, the problem then becomes finding legal constructions that
accomplish the same idea.
>Savan,
>QeS lagh
>taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian
--ter'eS