[911] in tlhIngan-Hol
Questions for Okrand
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu May 20 20:13:04 1993
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
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Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
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Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Ken_Beesley.PARC@xerox.com
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Cc: tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us
Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 15:28:12 PDT
Some of the proposed questions for Okrand assume syntactic or morphological
mechanisms that may not apply in Klingon. E.g.
> > (3) Missing prepositions: with, around, near, far from, through, etc.
[tlhej V accompany] is a useful candidate for a suffix for "with".
[Sum V be_near] is in the tape. [Hop V be_far_away] is in TKD, and could
usefully be allowable as transitive "be far from". If X is a supplied verb for
"pierce, go through", it could also be used as a suffix = "through".<<
Klingon may not use prepositions (or postpositions) for "with" and similar
notions, so the suggestion that tlhej might be a useful candidate for a suffix
is very astute. In TKD, section 3.3.5 we have type 5 suffixes called
"Syntactic markers" that would probably be called "case" markers in
natural-language descriptions (Okrand goes a bit out of his way to avoid
technical linguistic terms). These include
-Daq traditionally a Dative-Locative or DAT-LOC (could /Daq/ have
been inspired by a crude phonetic folding of DAT and LOC?)
Some
languages distinguish dative or "inessive" (to), locative (in),
and
illative (into).
pa'Daq = "to (the/a) room" or "in (the/a) room"
-vo' traditionally an Ablative (could /vo'/ be inspired by "fro'"
(from)?)
pa'vo' = "from the room"
-vaD traditionally a Benefactive (maybe there is another technical
term that sounds vaguely like /vaD/? I can't think of one
offhand.)
Languages that have such suffixes often have other parallel suffixes for
Instrumental (tool or means by which something is performed), Accusative
(marking the patient or direct object--this suffix is often dispensed with when
word order makes the roles clear) and Comitative ("with"-like accompaniment
meanings). Depending on the language, there might be more (Genitive for "of"
or "belonging to", illative "into", adessive "on", partitive "part of",
abessive "without", etc). And there might be interplay (and agreement
requirements) between case-marked nouns and pre- or post-positions.
On p. 27, Okrand writes "English indicates the function of nouns in a sentence
by adding words, particularly prepositions . . . . Similarly, in Klingon,
nouns which indicate something other than subject or object usually must have
some special indication of exactly what their function is. Unlike English,
this is accomplished by using suffixes." As linguists, we might well
postulate that there are more of these suffixes, and we can devise specific
experiments (questions) to test for them.
So rather than asking Okrand for "missing prepositions," which presupposes the
existence of such prepositions, it is better to ask "how-do-you-say-this"
questions, such as:
How do you say "Mary went to the park with a Klingon." (Comitative "with"?)
How do you say "Mary killed John with/using a knife." (Instrumental "with"?)
Can you distinguish "John ran into the house" vs. "John ran (around) in(side)
the house?)
How do you say "sword of honor". With 'etlh = sword (n) and batlh = honor (n),
we presumably can create the compound batlh'etlh (honor-sword), but are there
other ways to say it? How many? This might reveal a genitive.
How do you say "John fought without a sword."? This might reveal an abessive.
etc.
In this way we might tease out or "elicit" better information from Okrand and
his informant.
One might also ask:
"Is is possible sometimes to depart from the normal OVS ordering by overtly
marking the object somehow?" If such a mechanism exists, it might look like an
accusative case ending, or it could be a particle that looks like a preposition
or postposition, etc. This could free up word order for poetry.
Ken Beesley
