[Tlhingan-hol] Question regarding purpose clauses

Tue May 1 04:01:24 PDT 2012

> If you expand a tool so that it can mean several different things, then
> the grammar itself begins to convey less meaning.

...and if you constrain it too much, it can become less versatile; it's a double-edged sword.

> You seem to be a strong proponent of weakening {-meH} until it stops
> indicating a purpose clause and begins instead to vaguely suggest some
> sort of poorly defined association with the main verb.

I'd argue I'm not a proponent of any such thing. First and foremost, I'm speculating and asking the community about what sort of structure these sentences appear to exemplify (and there seems to be a wide range of opinions); what the common denominators are. After that comes the question of how far one is to extrapolate from this, and how one goes about dealing with possible new interpretations, so that -meH clauses do not become meaningless: Given a broader range of interpretations, how do we distinguish between them? Are there cases where we need to provide additional context to make our meanings clear?

> You apparently want to apply {-'e'}  to a verb or clause instead of a noun,
> and you can't, so you choose {-meH} to victimize toward that end instead.

I certainly don't want that, and I honestly don't think I've proposed it. By my interpretation of canon, the main clause of a {P-meH M} construction would still relate to how the purpose is to be achieved:

wIqIpmeH Qatlh'a' - Will achieving the goal be difficult?

qaSuchmeH jIpaSqu' - The goal will not be achieved on time.

Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam - This day is good for achieving the goal.

tlhutlhmeH HIq ngeb qaq law' bIQ qaq puS - If you want to achieve this goal, you'd be better off going with fake ale than with water.

Non-canonical: *wej pawpu'meH vay' DuH'a'* - Is it possible that this purpose has not yet been achieved by anybody?

Nevertheless, I admit there is a risk for a slippery slope, which is why I think discussions such as this one are useful.

> So, if I say {qaSuchmeH jIvumqu'} should we similarly weaken the
> meaning of {-meH} until it merely suggests that while I was working
> hard, I randomly thought about visiting you?

I agree, that'd be an example of stretching the interpretation way too far, and I'd argue it's way further than anything I've suggested (in your example, the work does not pertain to achieving the goal at all). Just because we broaden our interpretation of a structure doesn't mean we have to broaden it ad absurdum.

Nevertheless, I admit there is a risk for a slippery slope, which is why I think discussions such as this one are useful.

> The purpose of a purpose clause is to indicate purpose. Is that really
> so hard to grasp?

There's nothing hard about it. I'm just not sure it's the case, nor that it should be.

> If you use a purpose clause to indicate some association with the main
> verb other than purpose, then the purpose clause fails to serve its
> purpose.

In all the examples given, I'd argue the verb marked with the -meH sufix would still qualify as purposes.
Furthermore, if the perceived purpose of the -meH suffix changes, I don't think that means it fails to serve its purpose; I think it just serves a different purpose.

________________________________________
From: lojmIt tI'wI' nuv [lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 12:23
To: tlhIngan-Hol
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Question regarding purpose clauses

The missing question is: Does it work well? If you expand a tool so that it can mean several different things, then the grammar itself begins to convey less meaning. You seem to be a strong proponent of weakening {-meH} until it stops indicating a purpose clause and begins instead to vaguely suggest some sort of poorly defined association with the main verb.

You apparently want to apply {-'e'}  to a verb or clause instead of a noun, and you can't, so you choose {-meH} to victimize toward that end instead. "As for visiting you, I'm very late." "On the topic of visiting you, I am very late." It bothers you that anyone might suggest that {qaSuchmeH jIpaSqu'} indicates that my being very late has some odd intent or motive serving the purpose of bringing me to visit you, which makes it a poor example of a Klingon sentence, but you want it declared exemplary. You want MORE similar use of the suffix.

This is why this stretched interpretation of the role of {-meH} in Klingon weakens its ability to convey meaning. So, if I say {qaSuchmeH jIvumqu'} should we similarly weaken the meaning of {-meH} until it merely suggests that while I was working hard, I randomly thought about visiting you? Perhaps I was thinking of visiting you because the purpose of my working hard was to achieve the goal of visiting you. Or perhaps not. Maybe my working hard had some other purpose and visiting you had nothing to do with it. I work hard to send my kid to college. I visit you as a moment of relief from the stress of working hard to send my kid to college. So, whenever I think about sending my kid to college, I think of visiting you.

The purpose of a purpose clause is to indicate purpose. Is that really so hard to grasp? If you use a purpose clause to indicate some association with the main verb other than purpose, then the purpose clause fails to serve its purpose.

pItlh.

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 30, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Felix Malmenbeck <felixm at kth.se> wrote:

> The beauty of this particular sentence isn't really the issue, though; I don't think there's much doubt that there are both better and worse alternatives. The question really is: Is this evidence of a new grammatical tool that we can employ when trying to express ourselves?
> ________________________________________
> From: lojmIt tI'wI'nuv [lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 19:37
> To: tlhIngan-Hol discussion forum
> Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Question regarding purpose clauses
>
> I don't think of the world in terms of "right" and "wrong". I see some sentences as better and others as worse. Why deal in black and white when the world not only has shades of grey, but COLORS?
>
> I don't care whether the sentence is right or wrong. I care about whether or not it could be improved. It's quite possible to make a lot of ugly, valid sentences that confuse as much as they communicate. My goal is to come up with something that expresses an idea clearly, and with that motive, the idea of stretching grammatical constructions out to their obscure, opaque extremes is not interesting.
>
> Klingon is at its best when it is simple, straight-forward, efficient and nuanced. A lot of valid Klingon sentences can be none of these things.
>
> pItlh
> lojmIt tI'wI'nuv
>
>
>
> On Apr 30, 2012, at 11:47 AM, Felix Malmenbeck wrote:
>
> Some of the worst canon in existence is in movies because of the editing process.
>
> Quite true, though I think ST:V is for the most part an exception to this rule (at least when it comes to . Still, it's certainly the case that with the way movies are made, it's difficult to say which lines are well thought through and which ones aren't.
>
> And then there's {taH pagh taHbe'}. No thought went into that at all. He's on the set
> with a handful of prepared translated lines from MacBeth and other very
> Klingon-culturally-interesting scenes in Shakespeare, and the director turned to him
> and said, "Gimme 'To be or not to be.'" The actors were ready. The cameras were
> ready. Okrand knew he had a problem he didn't have time to solve well, so he
> improvised.
>
> Slightly worse, even: He did apparently put some thought into <yIn pagh yInbe'>, but when he told that to Christopher Plummer, he thought it sounded too tame and asked him to come up with something else.
>
> It is challenging to fathom how "we hit it" is the purpose of "it is difficult". Unless this
> is an unexplained idiom, it's a piss poor excuse for a sentence conveying meaning.
> Better would have been {Qatlh'a' wIqIpmeH Qu'?}. That would be hard to misinterpret.
>
> Difficult to fathom if one is convinced that the main clause of a {P-meH M} construction must the means by which P is achieved, yes. Thus, there are really three conclusions, the first two of which I give the most credence:
>
> 1. -meH has a wider range of use than TKD puts on.
> 2. This sentence is wrong.
> 3. It's some weird exception to the rules.
>
> ... but then people are saying these things, and people say poorly expressed things
> all the time. The characters in question were back-woods Klingons with self-esteem
> issues. There is no indication they were particularly well educated or that they spoke
> particularly standard Klingon. They are not Klingon language instructors. They are
> guys, bored, perhaps a little stupid, and aimlessly wandering around space looking
> for trouble. Do you really want to learn to talk like they do?
>
> Kind of, yeah. In fact, Klaa and Vixis are probably the only on-screen Klingons that I'd like to talk like; their performance is probably the only redeeming factor of that movie :P
>
> I probably understand how to say things in Klingon better than Okrand. That doesn't
> mean that I have any intentions of taking his authority away from him. He created the
> language. I have enormous respect for him for that. That respect won't stop me from
> rolling my eyes when I see what he does with the language from time to time.
>
> Indeed, there's certainly no reason one can't do both: Marc readily admits that there are many who are more fluent than he.
> I guess the make/break factor here really is how weird one thinks it would be if sentences like {wIqIpmeH Qatlh'a'} could mean something like "Difficult to hit?":
>
> Many seem to think that it's in line with what we know about -meH.
> I think it's a deviation from most of what we know about -meH, and lean towards the conclusion that -meH has a wider range of uses than we would otherwise have expected.
> You seem to agree that it's a deviation from most of what we know about -meH, but instead lean towards the conclusion that sentences like this are wrong.
>
> Either I missed something or the more complete transcript was not included.
>
> 'Twas, but it wasn't all in one place:
> http://klingonska.org/canon/search/?file=1998-01-18b-news.txt&get=source
> Basically, the original poster asks if {qaSuchmeH jIpaSqu'} is an okay way to say "I was too late to visit you". Marc responds that it means something more like that the visit did or will take place (though later, perhaps, than desired), and provides suggestions on how to say what the original poster wanted to say.
>
> There are definitely exceptions to the generality I'm about to make, but someone
> other than me once noted that Klingonists tended to fall into three groups:
>
> Guess I'm somewhere between groups 2 and 3: I'm an engineer, not a linguist, but I do enjoy discussing grammar ad nauseam.
>

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