[Tlhingan-hol] Question regarding purpose clauses

Tue May 1 14:51:06 PDT 2012

At 14:09 '?????' 5/1/2012, you wrote:
>ghItlhta' Qov:
> > Would everyone agree that {wIqIpmeH Qatlh'a' Qu' wIta'nISbogh?} was a
> > well formed sentence?
>
>I think everybody would agree that it's a 
>well-formed sentence, but I think that many 
>(myself being an exception) would contest that 
>it means what you want it to mean, since being 
>difficult does not contribute to accomplishing 
>the purpose (except in some very specific 
>scenarios, such as when you make it difficult in 
>order to make it appealing ... but that's not the idea here, I take it).

So, removing the interrogative, because that 
shouldn't make a difference, for you the change 
from {Qu' Qatlh wIta'nIS} to {Qatlh Qu' 
wIta'nISbogh} breaks the statement of what has to 
happen in order for us to hit it.  I can buy 
that. Can you accept that for some people it doesn't?

>My argument is - more or less - that it's not 
>crazy to think that this does work. [I also 
>think that on top of not being crazy, it may 
>also be "correct". I'm less certain about that, though.]
>
>A day can be good for dying.
>Fake ale can be preferable for drinking.
>A mission can be difficult for achieving.

Does the fact that the first two are acceptable 
English sentences and the last one sounds ESL have any bearing on anything?

>I'd assume it'd be something like:
>[DoS/nejwI'] wIqIpmeH [maH] Qatlh'a' [ngoQ/Qu'/ta']

I thought that was pretty obvious, too. So much 
so that I seem to have forgotten to omit the word Qu'.

>QI'tu'Daq maHlaw'taH. maHeghpu' qIt'a'?

Is there's supposed to be a -meH after 
maHeghpu'?  If so, then it comes out as stream of 
consciousness disjointed speech. "We seem to be 
in Paradise. In order for us to have died 
[something omitted] ... is it possible? It would 
get closer to "Is it possible we have died" if 
there were a period after maHeghpu'. Or better 
-'a' then a period. "Have we died?  Is it possible?"

>wej pa' pawmeH vay' DuH'a'?

Okay, trying to discard that I know what the 
discussion is about and just reading the 
sentence, like it was an interesting story 
someone had sent me ... I read that as:

"In order for someone's alternate reality to have 
not yet arrived in the room," - which doesn't 
make sense without further context, but it might 
work as something from the scene from HHGttG 
where Zaphod Beeblebrox eats the piece of fairy 
cake from which the universe model was 
extrapolated. I'm looking for something that is 
like a possibility but greater in scope or importance. Future?

"In order for him to have not yet arrived there, 
is something possible," Hmm, that might mean 
something. It would be better if vay' were 
changed to wanI' and if the whole thing were 
rearranged to wej pa' paw. DuH'a' pawbe'meH wanI'?

"In order for someone to have not yet arrived at 
the room ... is it possible."  I think this was 
the one you were aiming at, but I'm afraid the 
two halves don't connect for me. It's like 
someone getting 'e' backwards and trying to use 
sentence as subject. I think I'm not the first 
person to say that in this thread.  It just 
doesn't connect as something that is done to achieve the first clause.

Because I know what you are trying to say, I 
wonder if you are approaching it from the English 
"Is it possible for someone to have not yet 
arrived in the room."  English is pig-ass stupid 
and does different things with the same words and 
the same thing with different words without any 
rules that native speakers know. That "for" has 
nothing to do with "for the purpose of."  If 
there is a slight difference between "Is it 
possible for someone to have not yet arrived in 
the room?" and "Is it possible that someone has 
not yet arrived in the room?" it is the 
difference between {wej pa' pawlaH'a' vay'} and 
{wej pa' paw vay' 'e' qaSlaHmoH'a' wanI' DuH?}. 
But the two could both mean exactly the same thing, the second one.

Say things that need saying. Use the best tools 
at your disposal to express them in the clearest 
manner possible. If people don't understand 
something then rather than trying to explain it, 
rip it out and try a new way to say it.

- Qov

>_______________________________________
>From: David Trimboli [david at trimboli.name]
>Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 21:41
>To: tlhingan-hol at stodi.digitalkingdom.org
>Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Question regarding purpose clauses
>
>On 5/1/2012 2:58 PM, Felix Malmenbeck wrote:
> >
> >> But the "to hit" in the English is *not* a purpose clause. The
> >> full sentence is either "Is the target difficult to hit?" or "Is it
> >> difficult to hit the target?" In neither case does the "to hit"
> >> mean "in order to hit." (*"Is the target difficult in order to
> >> hit?" *"Is it difficult in order to hit the target?") Interpreting
> >> it this way, you're just trying to rationalize away the fact that
> >> there is no purpose expressed in this sentence
> >
> > There's a purpose in the Klingon sentence, though: The purpose is
> > hitting it. The question is: How hard will that purpose be to
> > achieve?
>
>There is a purpose in the situation being described, but it is not
>expressed in the sentence. There is no dependency in the sentence on
>being difficult, which is what a purpose clause does.
>
>"The purpose clause always precedes the noun or verb whose purpose it is
>describing." (TKD 64)
>
>The purpose clause describes the purpose of the noun or verb to which it
>is attached. In the example sentence, {qIpmeH} "in order to hit" can
>*only* be describing the purpose of {Qatlh'a'} "is it difficult?"
>
>Let's drop the question for a moment. *{qIpmeH Qatlh} "it is difficult
>to hit." This means, literally, "it has the quality of being difficult
>so that it can hit." (Let's also ignore the seemingly wrong subject and
>object combination... "so that it can hit"?)
>
>But "it" (the target?) does not have the quality of being difficult so
>that it can hit. During the situation in question, the probe was just
>floating out in space. There was no intention there, no purpose; no one
>did anything to make anything difficult.
>
>What the Klingon question *should* be asking is, "Is the hitting
>difficult?" Most simply, that would be something like {Qatlh'a'
>qIpghach}, though one would not actually say it like that. This is where
>twisty constructions like {qIpmeH 'eb} "opportunity for hitting" and the
>like start appearing.
>
> >> If this explanation and the sheer obvious English bias of the
> >> translations
>
>(Oh, *and* the fact that it doesn't match the grammar in TKD.)
>
> > don't convince you, what would?
> >
> > To be convinced this doesn't work, I'd need either:
> >
> > a) 
to be convinced that it's absurd for the main clause to be a
> > description of some quality of the means ("it's difficult"), rather
> > than a direct statement of those means ("aiming and shooting").
>
>I don't undestand what you mean here. I think there are too many
>negatives for me to follow.
>
>If we go by the actual sentiment, rather than what is spoken, the
>"hitting" is what is difficult, not the purpose of being difficult. If
>anyone has a purpose in the scene, it is Captain Klaa, whose purpose is
>to hit the target.
>
>qIpmeH baHta'
>he fired to hit the target
>
>If {Qatlh} were a noun meaning "difficulty," I would accept {qIpmeH
>Qatlh} as "hitting difficulty." But then it couldn't be a question.
>
>Now, I'd also be interested if you could try to explicitly identify the
>subject and object (if any) of {qIpmeH}, and the subject of {Qatlh'a'}.
>Is *what* difficult?
>
>--
>SuStel
>http://www.trimboli.name/
>
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