[912] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re[4]: "movie"mey, etc. (was: RE: RESENT: Bounced Mail
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu May 20 21:53:30 1993
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Mark_Nudelman@go.com
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Cc: Ken_Beesley.PARC@xerox.com
Date: 20 May 93 17:12
Ken Beesley writes (quoting me):
>> To me, it doesn't matter much whether vIQong is
ungrammatical or just nonsensical. As Krankor points out,
no one would say it either way. <<
If I may be allowed to differ here, the question posed here is rather central
to a linguist. If ?vIQong is ungrammatical, then it should be rejected by my
(or anyone else's) morphological analyzer. If it is just nonsensical, then it
should analyze successfully. Judging by semantic intent, beginning Klingonists
do in fact often use the subject-object prefixes inappropriately on verbs like
Qong. We correct them. If ?vIQong is ungrammatical and if an automatic
analyzer can catch that fact, then the analyzer would be that much better at
helping us all write Kosher Klingon.
I knew when I wrote that ("it doesn't matter much ...")
that any linguist would object strongly. The
transitive/intransitive distinction is central to many
grammars. However, as I thought about this issue, I
realized that to my mind, "I sleep him" (in English) doesn't
SOUND ungrammatical. At least, not like "I him hit". The
latter sentence, although I can make a good guess as to what
is meant, is clearly ungrammatical and would not be spoken
by a native English speaker. For the former sentence,
curiously, I haven't a clue what a speaker might mean by it,
but I *think* I could imagine a native speaker saying it.
He'd be referring to some kind of "sleep" that's different
from what we ordinarily mean, probably. (He certainly
wouldn't mean "I put him to sleep".) The sentence doesn't
sound like bad grammar, but like some non-standard *meaning*
of "sleep".
Anyway, I realize I'm treading on thin ice with this
argument, and I don't believe in it too strongly myself.
But just to make one more point: whether or not a computer
program can be written to give a "grammatical/ungrammatical"
stamp to various utterances doesn't seem to have a lot to do
with whether a native speaker would accept or reject the
utterance. There seems to be a fuzzy line here, and most,
if not all, speakers not linguistically trained would
probably not make a qualitative distinction between certain
utterances considered "ungrammatical" by linguists and
others which are "grammatical" but nonsensical.
--nachHegh
Mark_Nudelman@go.com
