[Tlhingan-hol] Semantic roles with -moH... again

[Brent Kesler]

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 5:52 AM, David Trimboli <david at trimboli.name> wrote:

> On 2/8/2012 6:30 PM, Brent Kesler wrote:
>
>>
>> The problem with thematic relations and theta roles is that they're
>> subjective. It's hard for two people to look at the same sentence and
>> come up with the same thematic description. For example, in the sentence
>> "Mary is sad", we can both agree that Mary is the experiencer of the
>> verb-qoq 'to be sad'. The sentence "Mary cries" is problematic. Is Mary
>> the agent of crying? Does that imply will on Mary's part? If Mary cannot
>> choose to cry or stop crying, would it be better to describe her as the
>> experiencer? If she forces herself to cry, is she the agent? The cause?
>> How are we supposed to figure all that out from just the simple sentence
>> "Mary cries"?
>>
>
> As I showed, this difference is not important. It doesn't matter what
> theta role the nouns take in the sentence—when adding -moH, the subject
> becomes the cause and the other nouns remain exactly the same.


I'm beginning to understand your argument better, and I think it works --
up to a point. The basis of my argument is that semantic roles are
imprecise; syntactic rules are precise and therefore a better guide for
using the language. If we're going to ignore questions about the precise
semantic role of a noun, why should we rely on a theory of semantic roles
to determine our grammar?


    HIp vItuQ jIH
>>    I wear a uniform (habitually or occasionally, not continuous or
>>    perfective)
>>    HIp = theme
>>    jIH = experiencer
>>
>> Why is {jIH} the experiencer? Why not agent? I assume it's an act of
>> will to wear a uniform.
>>
>
> It's an act of will to PUT ON a uniform, but the lack of type 7 verb
> suffix indicates that the wearing is not a continuous or discrete act, so
> it is not describing a single instance of wearing. It might be used in
> senses like "I am proud to wear the uniform" (if Klingons metaphorically
> link their uniforms with their service) or "I wear my uniform every day"
> (but not meaning "I put on my uniform every day). Simply finding yourself
> with a uniform surrounding your body makes you an experiencer, not an agent.


But once you find yourself with a uniform around your body, it is an act of
will to keep it on, at least at the moment you make that discovery. If
you're not paying any attention to the uniform around your body, can you
really be said to experience the uniform?

There's definitely room for argument here, but that's my point: when we're
debating the precise semantic role, it's more like philosophy than
linguistics. Shifting semantic roles based on the aspect of the verb adds
needless complications to the theory. We end up ignoring the precise
semantic roles anyways, since we can't agree on them and they're not really
all that important, which is why I think a syntactic rule works better.



> I think the only reason this argument works is that you've chosen to
>> think of {jIH} as an experiencer rather than an agent. You could just as
>> easily interpret {jIH} as an agent in the first sentence, but then that
>> would overlap with cause, making {-moH} redundant and
>> unproductive--which is why thematic roles are so problematic.
>>
>
> It has nothing to do with the subject's prior theta role. We can use a
> sentence with an agent if you like, and the result is the same:
>
> QIn lI'pu' QumpIn
> The communications officer transmitted the message.
> QIn = patient
> QumpIn = agent
>
> QIn lI'moHpu' QumpIn
> The communications officer caused (an unspecified agent) to transmit the
> message.
> QIn = patient
> QumpIn = cause
>
> jaghla'vaD QIn lI'moHpu' QumpIn
> The communications officer caused (an unspecified agent) to transmit the
> message to the enemy commander.
> jaghla'vaD = beneficiary
> QIn = patient
> QumpIn = cause
>
> Whoever or whatever is the cause is not necessarily the party performing
> the action; they are only causing a party to perform the action.


This example makes sense to me. But couldn't we also say that in {QIn
lI'moHpu' QumpIn}, {QumpIn} isn't just the cause of {lI'}, but also the
agent of {lI'moH}?


    quHDaj qaw 'oH
>>    It (experiencer) remembers his heritage (theme)
>>
>> The sentence that started this debate so long ago was {wo'rIvvaD quHDaj
>> qawmoH Ha'quj} "The sash reminds Worf of his heritage". So what you're
>> saying here is that the sash remembers his heritage? That the sash
>> experiences the memory itself?
>>
>
> No, I'm just putting together a sentence to show how -moH works. All of
> these sentences aren't meant to refer to the same situation or be equally
> true. In fact, NONE of the pairs that have and lack -moH refer to the same
> situation. That's the point: without -moH, the subject performs the action;
> with -moH, the subject causes someone unspecified to perform the action.
> Except in cases where the subject causes himself to do something, these are
> different entities, and hence, different situations.


I think I understand your argument better now, but the usual pair of
sentences for demonstrating {-moH} would be:

1. {quHDaj qaw wo'rIv}
2. {wo'rIvvaD quHDaj qawmoH Ha'quj}

Both sentences clearly say that {wo'rIv} is the one who {qaw}, whether
there is some external cause or not. There is a clear and predictable
pattern to where {wo'rIv} shows up in these sentences, and it's easy to
formulate a syntactic rule for that. Semantic roles are helpful for
understanding how {-moH} works, but they alone cannot determine whether we
should say {wo'rIvvaD quHDaj qawmoH Ha'quj} or use some other construction
like *{quHDaj'e' wo'rIv qawmoH Ha'quj} or even *{wo'rIv'e' quHDaj qawmoH
Ha'quj}.

I think I see where some of our disagreement is coming from. In my mind,
you seem to have some sort of a priori philosophical language program going
on: just figure out the semantic roles of each argument and plug them into
their proper places. Looking back, I realize that's something I assumed you
thought, not something you explicitly said. I'm attacking an idea that may
or may not be a part of your argument based on my guesswork about what's
going on in your head. I'm sorry.

Your semantic rule kinda works: "The subject changes from whatever semantic
role it has to CAUSE, and all other arguments the verb takes keep their
original role". That does describe what's going on with {wo'rIv}. However,
the examples you gave seemed to insist that the subject of a bare verb is
ALWAYS the same as the subject of a {-moH} verb, just with a different
semantic role.

3. HIp vItuQ jIH.
4. HIp vItuQmoH jIH.
5. jIQeHtaH
6. jIQeHmoHtaH.
7. yaS vIQeHmoH.
8. quHDaj qaw 'oH.
9. ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH 'oH.

It was 8 and 9 that really confused me. I thought you were saying that
{'oH} had to represent the same thing in both sentences (ie, the sash),
which didn't make sense to me.


 At the start of your post, you argued that "The object is NOT affected
>> by the semantic change, but is still syntactically the thing to which
>> the action as a whole is done." You break that rule with {yaS vIQeHmoH}.
>> Why does {QeH} -- which does not take an object -- suddenly gain one
>> when {-moH} is added? If {QeH} can take an object, what is its semantic
>> role? Why does the hypothetical object of {QeH} change thematic roles
>> when you add {-moH}, but {tuQ} and {qaw} do not?
>>
>
> Any pre-existing object that appears in a sentence both with and without
> -moH will have the same semantic role.


Agreed.


{QeH} without {-moH} does not take an object because its meaning does not
> include an object, but the meaning of {QeHmoH} does. No rule forbids us
> from putting objects on verbs of quality, except the rule of "that makes no
> sense."


This is what you said when we first debated {-moH}, and this is why I
assume you're taking an a prior philosophical approach. I think you're
assuming {QeH} encodes a natural concept that is consistent across
languages and that anyone can intuit that that meaning does not allow an
object. I argue that different languages can assign different semantic
roles to whatever verb means "to be angry" and that you have to *learn*
what those roles are. "That makes no sense" isn't a rule of the language;
it's a strategy we use to learn a language, and it's a strategy that is
unreliable.

I could imagine studying Klingon, learning that {QeH} means "to be angry",
that it does not take an object, then going to Kronos and hearing people
say ?{jupwI' vIQeH} ("I'm angry at my friend") or ?{bomvam vIQeH} ("I'm
angry about this song"). Or maybe only one of these is correct. Or maybe
{QeH} is ergative: {jIQeH} ("I am angry") vs. *{jIH muQeH} ("He angers me").

We're pretty sure Klingon doesn't work that way, but it just as easily
could have. So I don't think we can say that {QeH} doesn't make sense with
an object because it just doesn't, ie, that we can intuit for ourselves
which verbs should have objects and which verbs should not. I think your
understanding of {-moH} relies more on your intuitions about English than
your observations of Klingon.

bI'reng
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