[248] in tlhIngan-Hol
The pabpo' responds again
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Mar 26 06:37:22 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: krankor@IMA.ISC.COM (Captain Krankor)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 92 05:30:07 -0500
Ok, now I have to respond to the responses {{:-)
First, while the following sentence does me honor, it contains an error:
pabpo'vamneS vItoy' 'e' muquvmoH!
Can't use -neS like that, -neS is a verb suffix and pabpo'vam is
clearly a noun.
Next: the fact that my whole thing on -ghach is technically no more
than a theory is so obvious that I'm truly surprised that so much
trouble was taken to examine it. Obviously Okrand could pull the
rug out from under this; he's done it to us before. But we're not
expecting any new output from him on the language anytime soon, so
we have 3 choices in such matters:
1) totally avoid anything that touches on murky matters
2) everyone run off and do their own thing with murky issues
3) do the best we can to determine what makes sense, and then
stick with it until such time as we receive clarification
from Okrand.
1) is uninteresting, unfun, unsatisfying, and ultimately unacceptible
2) will cause chaos where nobody can understand anybody else
3) Is what is in the charter for this group. In the end, someone
has to decide what we will use as guidelines in the absense of
fact, and that falls to the pabpo'. I am happy to entertain
discussion, and even change rulings if someone else has superior
insight, and NOTHING would please me more than to simply have
Mr. Okrand come be our pabpo'. But I must confess to being
*really* surprised to have someone go off on a long thing about
how what I said isn't 'fact'. Of course it isn't! If you think
my conclusions are not well supported, that a different tack would
be superior based on such knowledge as we do possess of the
language, great, let's talk about it. But to simply point out
that other interpretations are possible without actually trying
to argue in favour of any of them isn't helping us any; obviously
I considered those possibilities, and found them less
satisfactory. If you are saying that one of them is actually
more satisfactory, great, then say so and explain why and we'll
hash it out. If you are just saying that nothing I conclude is
definitive and other interpretations were possible, then my
response is 'Yeah, obviously. So what?'
Frankly, I don't *like* having to do this kind of judgement call.
You can see that I hesitated a fairly long time before attempting
to describe this current one about -ghach at all. Indeed,
I would be much happier if the language were always well
described, but we all know that sadly, this is not the case.
I go to great lengths not to 'make up' anything and stick as
close as possible to the official rules, and really try to pull
all inferences out of the holistic feel of the langauge as a
whole wherever possible. My limited conversations with Mr.
Okrand have convinced me that we two are more or less in sync
about the language, so I usually feel fairly confident when I do
make a ruling, but obviously I'm *keenly* aware that I'm just
interpreting, and could find everything I conclude scrapped with
just one word from Mr. O.
More stuff on -law':
1) tlhInganpu'vaD mIghlaw' nuq?
I've given a lot of thought to this issues, and researched it as
much as possible with our limited resources. I think I pretty well
understand the issues; I stand by my conclusion but can understand
how and why one might take it the other way. The crux of the issue
is: just *how* subjective in meaning are the type 6 verb suffixes.
It is clear that two rather different interpretations are possible,
and depending on which of the two you adhere to, the question above
will either make complete sense or seem totally wrong.
Consider:
bIpIvHa'law' "You look terrible." (You seem unhealthy)
What exactly does the speaker mean here? Let's name our two
paradigms. We'll call them the "strict" and the "loose" approaches.
According to the strict approach, -law' is very strongly associated
with a first-person singular subjective meaning. We would therefore
have to conclude that the speaker means something like:
"You are ill, IMHO."
in the sense of "I think you're ill, I don't have certain knowledge
of it, but that's my opinion, that's my take on the situation. I don't
know what anybody else thinks, but from where I sit, you don't look so
good."
This is subtly different (*very* subtly) from the "loose" approach,
which conveys uncertainty but does not so strongly couple it to
subjectivity. It expresses an objective truth, colored with some
doubt, rather than expressing a purely subjective truth. Our
sentence would come out:
"You look ill."
in the sense of "You look ill, anyone could see it, it is
objectively true that you seem ill; I'm not a doctor, so I can't say
for sure that you are ill, but it's readily apparent that you don't
look so good."
It is easy to see that the translation "You seem unhealthy" is
perfectly acceptable to either paradigm, with the understanding that
the "strict" camp adds an implicit "to me" at the end.
I personally feel that the original translation, "You look
terrible", fits better with the "loose" approach, but strictly
speaking, the evidence is very balanced, and I don't think there's
any clear way to demonstrate even a *likelihood* of either paradigm
being the correct one. Most of the time it doesn't matter much,
because the difference is so subtle, and it only comes to the
surface when it shows up in something like the original question
that started this whole thing.
In short, -law' expresses doubt on the part of the speaker. What is
unclear is whether the speaker considers this his own personal doubt
or whether he feels it is a generally shared doubt. I think that it
is obvious that -law' can be used to express strictly personal
doubt; what's at issue is whether more general doubt can be
expressed by it.
Here's an example that will perhaps better illustrate the situation.
Suppose there were a new scientific theory that was proposed, and
had some pretty good evidence supporting it, but had not yet been
conclusively proven, though there was good likelihood that it would
be. Let's make up such a theory: Let's say the theory was that the
Earth was originally a moon of Jupiter. What the hey. Let's say,
moreover, that I *personally* believe the theory, but am also aware
that it is as-yet not-fully-proven. Now, in conversation about this
subject, can I use the clause:
"Jupiter" maS 'oHlaw'pu'mo' tera''e'...
"Because Earth was (apparently) Jupiter's moon..."
The doubt being expressed here is of a very general nature, that
kind of careful scientific reservation about the unproven. But it's
not my personal, subjective doubt; in fact, I fully believe the
theory, I probably just threw in the -law' to keep people from
jumping on me about "It's not a proven fact yet!"
Again, the loose paradigm would say that I can do this, I believe
the strict one would say I can't. The strict one would say the
clause actually translates as something like
"Because I think the Earth was Jupiter's moon..."
or at least
"Because the Earth, it seems to me, was Jupiter's moon..."
neither of which is the meaning I wish to convey. It's not that it
seems that way *to me*, it's that it seems that way in general, or
to most people, or many people, or whatever.
Anyway, that at least outlines the issues. I am not convinced at
this time that there is *any* way of resolving this from the data at
hand. It all hinges on how strictly and literally one reads the
phrases like "[uncertainty] on the speaker's part" (p 40).
A fascinating but ultimately sad issue, because we cannot resolve
it. My gut feeling is that the wording is what it is simply because
the author didn't think of our examples. I suspect the whole issues
wasn't even considered, let alone resolved. But I would be willing
to bet money that were he to consider it, Okrand would go with the
loose paradigm. That just my gut feel from having talked to him,
and I realize that it proves nothing.
2) mungeDlaw'
>but rather "can <ngeD> take _any_ kind of object?" If the answer is
>"no", then <mungeDlaw'> must be malformed.
There is no scrap of evidence anywhere to support any conclusion
other than: any verb can take an object if it makes semantic sense.
There is no sentence anywhere in the dict that says anything even
remotely like "such and such verb (or class of verbs) can't take an
object". The example we have demonstrably does make semantic sense,
since more than one individual here readily understood it. The
object it is taking is one we would consider "indirect", but this is
moot. To conclude "some verbs can't take _any_ kind of object"
would be to fabricate a rule out of thin air. If you disagree,
support your case with examples.
> But what of <yaSvaD qoq qIplaw'pu' beq>? This
> sentence certainly can be read as "It seems the crewman hit the robot
> for the officer." The question is, can it also be read as "It seems to
> the officer that the crewman hit the robot"?
There follows a supposition that I am claiming the answer is "yes".
Hogwash. I never claimed or implied such a thing. I in fact
explicitly denied you could do this. Only the first translation of
the two is acceptible. As I stated above, the issue is whether "it
seems" necessarily means "it seems *to me*", as opposed to "it seems
(in general)". I never ever ever ever claimed you could make it be
anything like "it seems to the officer".
> leS puSDaq DochvamDaq jIghItlhqa'taH.
>In a noun-adjective construction, shouldn't the noun affixes go on the
>noun? More like <leSDaq puS>?
No. Section 4.4, page 50, last paragraph.
jIHvam rap Dochvam. jIyajchu'.
"jIHvam"? jIyajbe'. "jIHvaD" DaneHlaw'pu' (?)
--Krankor, puq Doy'
