tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 22 13:09:07 2009
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: The topic marker -'e'
- From: Christopher Doty <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: The topic marker -'e'
- Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:07:28 -0800
- Dkim-signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :from:date:message-id:subject:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=9J3q0OfCEr5Tqt30yhSkkhHG0SnaAk7XnDy0UQ7nJuA=; b=ELW9NDUpAY4mhWozBmzX5Yx/RMPDPFMkWDIrR6bACTQj7iKlbjatqDbqK2Kib3nCel sYwl0bhHneoqGFmpWDYTyC6Wf+TLxYMPe+1o87b9OHdIhg9QmPGjpw7MXVzUSMuEh9Xe BFmwXNCR50C3SXipdtXWsiENYaK6ttNltuVwo=
- Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=deaByhQDn/CsHMNUD/is8CLeUypum6cCQqwua8vBkYoXKdSHFn4eM6y8jxSQz5Ykhr gjartEnmpdLuGuMZ1XBTtbcmn0yYdWX5xSQbwSb0vTkt4495ZO8wKVn6FTPGuHACshPL XjZUvP0clME5n0dSuJiwjNpvf8hh9x8NTTdtc=
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]>
- References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
"mapum" might not be ungrammatical, but what is "mapum Sor"?? If we
translate literally into English, we get
"(A/the) tree we fall."
What does that mean? How can you write a computer program to provide
a translation of something that doesn't really mean anything?
I also disagree with "mapum" being ambiguous. The verb "fall" is
intransitive, and the verb "accuse" is transitive. If we see a "ma-"
prefixed to "pum," then that "pum" is the verb "fall" and not the verb
"accuse," which needs an object, and so ought to have different
prefixes.
Chris
On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 12:12, Steven Lytle <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Christopher Doty <[email protected]>wrote:
>> > "mapum" doesn't mean 'fall'. It means "we fall" (or "we accuse"; "pum" is
>> > two different verbs). There is no point in losing information that is
>> given
>> > in the original just because the translation is odd.
>> > In fact, "mapum Sor" could be interpreted as "We trees fall", although
>> this
>> > use of a noun as subject with a non-third-person prefix is controversial
>> at
>> > best.
>>
>> I think this exactly what Tracy meant in saying that, for
>> ungrammatical (or "controversial") sentences, the machine translator
>> isn't going to work very well due to ambiguity. You posit three
>> possible interpretations of "mapum (Sor)" because of the ambiguity
>> found in an ungrammatical sentence. There seems little point in
>> having an automatic translator that could posit every single possible
>> esoteric meaning for anything ungrammatical...
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>>
>>
> But "mapum" is not ungrammatical. It is ambiguous. It can mean "we fall" or
> "we accuse", and only context can resolve which is meant. The subject "we"
> and the word "Sor" are the only unambiguous parts of the sentence. To omit
> one leaves a poor translation.
> And controversial doesn't mean ungrammatical.
>
> lay'tel SIvten
>
>
>
>