[95906] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Klingon from Star Trek 2009
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Trimboli)
Sun Mar 24 11:38:35 2013
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 11:38:18 -0400
From: David Trimboli <david@trimboli.name>
To: tlhingan-hol@stodi.digitalkingdom.org
In-Reply-To: <514EB017.5030204@gmx.de>
Errors-To: tlhingan-hol-bounces@stodi.digitalkingdom.org
On 3/24/2013 3:49 AM, Lieven wrote:
>
>> Dajatlhbogh vIyajbe'
>> I don't understand what you said
>>
>> Notice the lack of a head noun on the relative clause.
>
> On the other hand, don't forget that Okrand even does mistakes himself
> sometimes. We might call them "Klingon dialect" :-)
>
> cf. TKD 3.3.5
> lujpu' jIH'e'
> It is I who has failed
>
> Notice the lack of the prefix :-P
>
> That doesn't make it right nor a new rule. It's probably just a mistake
> since there is no further mentioning of it.
Some things are more obviously errors than others. Forgetting a verb =
prefix when you're emphasizing the subject pronoun is not an uncommon =
error, and the translation does not suggest that anything new=97besides =
the topic-suffix=97is being exemplified. It's also unclear what special =
rule this would be giving us if it *were* a special rule. And finally, =
using special, unattested grammar is a section of the dictionary meant =
to be showing us something else entirely is bad form, and goes against =
the writing style of the rest of the book.
On the other hand, we know or can surmise quite a bit about the headless =
relative clause on KCD. I think we can pretty much agree that Okrand was =
asked to translate original English into Klingon for the workings of the =
Language Lab. The authors gave him "I don't understand what you said," =
and he came up with {Dajatlhbogh vIyajbe'}; it didn't happen the other =
way round. Also, the English the Klingon in that it doesn't have a head =
noun in the relative clause; it uses "what" as a relative pronoun, a =
feature that Klingon does not have. I believe we can also presume that =
Okrand was NOT the one who chose which audio files got used in the game =
and which didn't; whether the phrase is grammatical had no bearing on =
whether it was used in the game.
Given all this, I don't think it's difficult to declare that {lujpu' =
jIH'e'} is obviously an error while {Dajatlhbogh vIyajbe'} is not =
obviously an error. Whether it is actually formally grammatical is =
another question=97one that cannot be answered at this time=97but I don't =
believe you can throw it on the scrapheap. Notice that I never tried to =
claim a new rule allowing headless relative clauses; I just point it out =
as "Okrand came up with it and there's no reason to think it was an error."
The only other explanation for it that I can think of is that it was =
meant to be part of a fill-in-the-blank construction. Remember that the =
game lets the user speak into a microphone and the program analyzes your =
speech. Now let *X* represent the user's recorded speech and /Y/ =
represent Okrand's voice. The plan might have been, upon detecting an =
unknown sentence by the user, to respond "*X* /Dajatlhbogh vIyajbe'/." =
This is just speculation. Countering this idea is the translation, "I =
don't understand what you said," which doesn't allow for the user's =
speech to be played back in the sentence.
-- =
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/
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