tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 30 17:47:22 2006
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Re: Purpose Clauses (was Re: "conjunction"?)
- From: "QeS 'utlh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Purpose Clauses (was Re: "conjunction"?)
- Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 11:45:53 +1000
- Bcc:
jIghItlhpu', jIja':
>In short: IMHO, {-meH}-clauses modifying nouns may, but don't need to, take
>pronominal prefixes. {-meH}-clauses modifying verbs, on the other hand,
>must
>take pronominal prefixes, hence examples like {Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam} in
>which the expected {-lu'} is present; I couldn't find any example of a
>{-meH}-clause modifying a verb that could conceivably be analysed as having
>no pronominal prefixes.
mujang Paul, ja':
>Connecting (and repeating) the "conjunction" discussion, if we gloss
>/rarmeH mu'/ as "conjunction", it does mean one could legally say:
>cha' mu'tlhegh rarmeH mu' yIlo'
>To mean "For you to connect two sentences, use the word." (It would be fine
>if you meant to say "For him to connect two sentences, use the word",
>because then the 0-prefix on /rarmeH/ suits the subject of /rar/). To be
>correct, you'd have to say:
>cha' mu'tlhegh DararmeH mu' yIlo'
>I went through KGT, TKW and found no instances where the subject of the
>verb in a purpose clause is first- or second-person and the clause did NOT
>have the correct prefix. In TKD, there's even the example on p65 where the
>/lu-/ third-person prefix is used.
I'm talking specifically about a {-meH}-clause modifying a *noun*
(admittedly, such examples are rare, and unambiguous examples almost
non-existent). I'm not talking about {-meH}-clauses modifying verbs, which I
do believe must take the appropriate agreement prefix.
>There's ONE exception I found, though -- in the back of TKD:
>Dochvetlh DIlmeH Huch 'ar DaneH
>How much do you want for that?
>Yuck. I'd almost chalk this up as a mistake, given the number of other
>places where non-0 prefixes are used, especially telling in the example
>/HIq DaSammeH tach yI'el/, and your example (from the Skybox card) /nargh
>qaSuchmeH 'eb/...
See, this is another piece of evidence supporting my theory. {[[Dochvetlh
DIlmeH Huch] 'ar] DaneH} "[how much [money to pay for that thing]] do you
want?". My theory explains this perfectly, and doesn't require us to write
it off as a mistake.
>I could only find two examples where a /-meH/ clause inarguably is attached
>to a noun -- /pe'meH taj/ "knife for cutting" is used in KGT as a sentence
>fragment (so I'm not sure we can make any inferences from that) and the
>Skybox card's /qaSuchmeH 'eb/.
>There are no cases I could find where a clause appears *after* an object,
>and *before* a verb (if that's even legal).
All the canon evidence indicates that it isn't.
>I'm not entirely convinced that in the majority of examples, where the
>clause appears before an object noun, that the clause actually applies *to*
>the noun, rather than applying to the verb. Although in some cases I can
>see arguments made for either case.
This is clearly the problem; our inventory of examples from which to draw is
very small. However, I still believe that my first example, along with the
example you provided above, support my theory.
>The second example in TKD is fairly interesting, I think:
>jagh luHoHmeH jagh lunejtaH
Two clauses: {[jagh luHoHmeH] [jagh lunejtaH]}. There's no ambiguity here,
because parsing this as ?{[jagh luHoHmeH jagh] lunejtaH} seems nonsensical:
"they seek [enemies for killing enemies]". I don't think this is an
instructive example.
>Okrand just got finished saying "The purpose clause always preceds the verb
>or noun whose purpose it is describing." But in the example, /jagh
>luHoHmeH/ does NOT describe the purpose of the second /jagh/ -- it's
>describing the purpose of the verb /nej/ "search". Okrand even states this
>explicitly.
I think the important word here is "precedes", not "verb or noun": Okrand's
pointing out that a purpose clause does not come after the main clause, but
before it. Note that Okrand also explicitly states that {jagh luHoHmeH} is
the purpose-clause, which seemingly violates the precept he stated not two
paragraphs before.
>Another good example is in TKW, p35:
>tlhutlhmeH HIq ngeb qaq law' bIQ qaq puS
>I don't think /tlhutlhmeH/ is purposing /HIq/ but rather the whole of the
>law'/puS construct. The translation given is "Drinking fake ale is better
>than drinking water." Perhaps more accurately, "For drinking, fake ale is
>better than water."
This is a genuine counterexample to my theory; I don't have a good
explanation for that one. But if your explanation is correct, it still says
nothing about the behaviour of {-meH}-clauses modifying nouns, as this one
is clearly modifying a verb.
>Also in TKW, p73:
>bIQapqu'meH tar DaSop 'e' DatIvnIS
>I don't think the purpose of the poison is for you to succeed; the purpose
>of eating it is...
Same thing. This says nothing about {-meH}-clauses modifying nouns (or
verbs, for that matter, as there's still an explicit prefix here).
>This says to me that in reality, purpose clauses appear before the
>object-verb-subject syntax of the verb they're modifying (just as might,
>for example, a /-chugh/ construct).
I agree, as does TKD. But this is only true for purpose-clauses that modify
the whole sentence. {-meH}-clauses modifying nouns can appear anywhere in
the sentence. {narghpu' qaSuchmeH 'eb} proves that.
>I could even see the clause coming before indirect objects:
>DayajmeH SoHvaD qechvam vImuch
>"I present this idea to you in order for you to understand it."
>If the purpose clause has a 0-prefix, and appears before a noun in the
>object position, it becomes ambiguous as to whether or not the clause
>modifies the object (noun) or verb:
>pe'meH taj neH.
>"He wants the cutting knife"
>"He wants the knife to cut (it)."
Agreed, but in context, does it matter which of the two interpretations we
take? This sentence is ambiguous; that means nothing.
Most of the rest of your email deals only tangentially with what I was
talking about, so I'll pass over that part.
>I don't think we have any good examples where purpose clauses attached to
>unambiguously to nouns show any example of the "implied indefinite subject"
>idea you proposed
So how do you parse {ngongmeH wa' DujDaq nuHmey nISbe'bogh So'wI'
jomlu'pu'}? The subject of {jom} is indefinite (presumably, the people who
installed the cloaking device). Logically, the people who installed the
cloaking device are the same people who want to experiment ({ngong} with the
ship - which means that the subject of {ngong} should be indefinite too, as
it's the same as the subject of {jom}. Even the previous sentence on the S33
card ({HoS law'qu' natlhmo' So'wI' QaptaHvIS So'wI' QaplaHbe' nuHmey} "due
to the tremendous energy drain of a cloaking device, weapons cannot be
discharged while the cloak is in operation") provides no good possibility
for an implied subject of {ngong}.
>-- with the only possible examples of /pe'meH taj/ which we don't actually
>get to see used in an actual sentence,
That's one of the big problems, I think.
>and this from TKD:
>Dochvetlh DIlmeH Huch 'ar DaneH
>Which is only notable because the subject of /DIlmeH/ should either be "I"
>(/vIDIlmeH/ "for me to pay for" -- I believe what the statement is actually
>implying), or "indefinite subject" (/DIllu'meH/ "for one to pay for")...
How do you propose to interpret it, then? My theory - that there is no
prefix - deals with this example quite satisfactorily, and resolves the
problems that would be created by applying the rule of {rom}.
QeS 'utlh
tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pabpo' / Grammarian of the Klingon Language Institute
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
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