[Tlhingan-hol] paS (was: Question regarding purpose clauses)

[Felix Malmenbeck]

> He wrote that "the visit did or will take place", which means that a
> deadline was not missed/will not be missed.  The visit has happened,
> or will happen.  He also added parenthetically "though later, perhaps,
> than desired".  It doesn't make much sense to me to say that one is
> "later" in missing a deadline (it's a boolean condition -- you either
> missed it or you didn't, and whether you missed it by a minute or by a
> day is not relevant).  But on the other hand, you can easily be
> visiting at a later time (i.e., a later part of the day, or a later
> day) than desired.  So the way I interpret this, at least, is that
> "late" here has the sense of "in the latter part of a time period".

We don't actually entirely disagree on this point. The article makes it quite explicit that being late does not necessarily imply that the opportunity is missed (Marc suggests alternative expressions for this).

However, missing a deadline doesn't necessarily mean that the goal isn't achieved. I am sometimes late to meet my friends, and I have know people for whom being late is the rule rather than the exception. However, when one of us is late, the others normally wait for us; the deadline was missed, but the meeting still takes place.

The thing is that when "late" is used of a person and as an adjective in English, it almost always means "tardy" (or "dead"); I've never heard of it being used to mean "doing something late in the day" (though I think "later" can be used in this regard); that's handled by the adverb "late", or by applying the adjective to an event or the like ("I was early to the late screening"). You wouldn't say "I was late" if your were on time to something that happened late in the day.

The fact that this is by far the most common use of the adjective "late" when applied to people, and the fact that it was this type of lateness that was being discussed in the post leads me to believe that if Marc had meant any other sense, he would have stated it specifically.


________________________________________
From: De'vID jonpIn [de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2012 19:06
To: tlhIngan-Hol
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] paS (was: Question regarding purpose clauses)

loghaD:
> My statement is based primarily on Marc's suggestion that the sentence occurs, but perhaps later than desired. While any English sentence can be interpreted in many ways, in my opinion it seems rather clear that Marc meant late as in "past the deadline" in this statement, or at least that that's a possible interpretation.

That isn't an obvious interpretation to me at all.  Let's see:

Marc Okrand:
> "Perhaps, then, a better English rendition of the Klingon sentence is "In order for me to visit you, I'll be very late."   This suggests that the visit did or will take place (though later, perhaps, than desired), which is not the intended meaning."
> http://klingonska.org/canon/search/?file=1998-01-18b-news.txt&get=source

He wrote that "the visit did or will take place", which means that a
deadline was not missed/will not be missed.  The visit has happened,
or will happen.  He also added parenthetically "though later, perhaps,
than desired".  It doesn't make much sense to me to say that one is
"later" in missing a deadline (it's a boolean condition -- you either
missed it or you didn't, and whether you missed it by a minute or by a
day is not relevant).  But on the other hand, you can easily be
visiting at a later time (i.e., a later part of the day, or a later
day) than desired.  So the way I interpret this, at least, is that
"late" here has the sense of "in the latter part of a time period".

loghaD:
> Agreed, though, that we don't know that that paS can't mean "occurring late in the day/month/year/[poH of your choice]". It seems a bit strange to me that one would then put the experiencer as the subject rather than the event, but, of course, stranger things have happened ("America, what a country! In your language, fire can burn intransitively. In Soviet Swedish, FIRE burns YOU!").

Why is this necessarily strange?

(1) The party occurred between 2 pm and 5 pm.  I arrived at 7 pm, and
everyone's gone.  "I arrived late, I missed the party."

(2) The party occurred between 2 pm and 2 am.  I arrived at 7 pm, and
enjoyed the party.  The next day, my friend who was there between 2 pm
and 5 pm asks me, "Why didn't I see you at the party yesterday?"  I
answer, "I arrived late, I was there all night."

Now, the sentence "I arrived late" can be used in either scenario, but
means different things.  In the first scenario, I can also say, "I was
late, I missed the party".  In the second scenario, if I say, "I was
late, I was there all night", I think "I was late" still makes sense
and would be understood, but granted it does sound a little bit
strange in English.  In English.  Who's to say that in Klingon,
{jIpaS} can't be used in both scenarios exactly where "I arrived late"
would be in English?

(1) {jIpaS.  nargh lopno' vIlopmeH 'eb.}

(2) {jIpaS.  qaStaHvIS ram naQ lopno' vIlop.}

One way I would interpret {qaSuchmeH jIpaSqu'} "In order for me to
visit you, I'll be very late" is this: you're available all day, but I
work until the evening, and won't be free until the night to visit
you.  So, in order for me to visit you, I'll be (arriving) very late.
I will take the midnight train after my evening shift to visit you.
{qaSuchmeH jIpaSqu'}.

Incidentally, Chinese has two words for the two senses of "late": 遲
(miss a deadline) and 夜 (late in the day).  So 遲到 (arrive late) means
to arrive past a deadline, whereas 夜到 (arrive late) means to arrive in
the evening or at night.  And of course Klingon has {ngo'} "old - not
new" and {qan} "old - not young" for the English "old".  So when one
word has two meanings in a language, one has to be careful about
whether a different language maps both of those meanings onto the same
word.  Conversely, one also has to be careful that if an English word
has two meanings, a Klingon word that is defined using that English
word might carry one or the other or both of those meanings.  I think
a case can be made that {paS} can mean "be late" in the sense of "in
the latter part of a time period", and so I don't think {qaSuchmeH
jIpaSqu'} "I was very late, with the reason of my being late being the
accomplishment of the purpose of visiting you" necessarily violates
what TKD says about {-meH}.

--
De'vID

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