[2534] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: naDev jIchu'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Jan 13 12:07:31 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: Will Martin <whm2m@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 11:57:51 EST
On Jan 12, 8:06pm, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
...
> Don't forget that the TKD has no examples longer than an English sentence,
> anyway...
If we consider the "sentence as object" construction to be TWO sentences
instead of ONE sentence containing two clauses, then TKD does contain
examples longer than one sentence. True, it is not longer than one ENGLISH
sentence, but it would contain more than one KLINGON sentence, which I
consider to be more significant here. I wish we could decide how to delimit
Klingon sentences. I wish Okrand would give us that much. It isn't really all
that much to ask.
> Following your lead, I actually use carriage returns rather than
> full stops in my work, though this may change.
I'm not sure I understand a "full stop". Do you mean a
period/exclamation point/question mark?
...
[speaking of sentence-as-object constructions:]
> I typically punctuate (either by full stop or carriage return)
> such sentences as one sentence; when the link between them is not quite
> conventional, though, as in Al's example, I'd punctuate them as two. But
> they are two sentences, as Krankor has explained. (Not that I need invoke
> his authority ;) ).
I do not remember Krankor explaining sentence-as-object constructions as
two sentences. I remember him explaining that in a dialog, a second person
will often finish a sentence that the first person started. I do not have his
article with me, but that is the way I remember interpreting his suggestion.
It felt more like (in English) the first person's sentence ended in an
elipsis and the second person's sentence began in lower case.
Until this thread, I had interpreted Okrand's reference to {'e'}
referring to "the previous sentence" as a reference to an independent clause;
a verb and any accompanying words. I did not interpret this to mean that it
really was a sentence to be delimited from the sentence containing the {'e'}.
That's what got me going on the whole topic of delimiters. My choice to
end "sentences" with a carriage return is barely more authoritative than the
choice of others to use periods, exclamation points or question marks. It was
merely the least presumptive way I could figure to do it. When we fail to
decide whether or not sentence-as-object constructions count as one or two
sentences, it presses me back to facing the issue of delimiting sentences or
not.
If we DON'T delimit sentences, then we return to the verb-noun-verb
problem (is the noun the subject of the first verb or the object of the
second verb?) that Okrand seems to seek to avoid with his choice to place
verbal conjunctions between verbs and his choice to use {'e'} as object, but
not as subject. That implies that we should delimit sentences for clarity. If
we do, then do we delimit between the two parts of a sentence-as-object
construction, and if so, how?
It strikes me that this sentence-as-object construction has two unique
aspects to it. First, it is the only grammatical construction involving more
than one sentence, assuming that we consider conjunctions to join sentences
into one sentence. The language in TKD suggests that. Second, it is the only
"locative" element that we conclusively know refers to something other than a
physical space. It is a pronoun, though it is different from all other
pronouns in that it always refers to a sentence instead of to a physical
body. The referred sentence always exists in a specific place in time: the
penultimate sentence in all the speech in this place up to the moment that
{'e'} is uttered. It refers to the last completed sentence (since the one
containing {'e'} is never completed by {'e'}. It is always so specific in its
reference that it is never allowed any of the suffixes allowed to other
pronouns.
I doubt there is another Klingon word (except for the more rarely useful
{net}) so unique in usage, construction or meaning, or so singularly useful
in expanding the capabilities of the language. Like other chuvmey (except for
pronouns, except for itself and {net}), it takes no affixes. Like a
conjunction, it establishes a relationship between two verbs. It is not a
normal pronoun and should probably be in a class alone with {net}. It should
be a "type" all unto itself.
-- charghwI'
