[Tlhingan-hol] Multiple Adverbials (was Re: Piraha)

[Will Martin]

On one hand, what you suggest makes sense, and anyone following the proposed grammatical rules will definitely be writing in clear, easy-to-understand Klingon.

On the other hand, I’m not sure that your theory is accurate, and think that maybe you are seeing a kind of order which would be really beautiful, were it real, but it might not be real.

I say this as a person who has, many times, thought that I recognized a nice, orderly way for things to work, only to discover that, no, people are not restricted to my idea of what a Klingon sentence should be like. It’s a messy language. It could have been messier, but it could have been more orderly as well.

I suspect that adverbials in Klingon are simply a pile of similarly functional grammatical tools. Maybe there is a consistent sequence to them, or maybe not. Someday, we may be told, but then again, maybe not.

I see {DaH tugh maSop} as being sensible, saying, “Now, we will eat soon.” Making a statement anchored in the “now”, we anticipate eating soon.

{wa'leS DaH maSop}  suggests that tomorrow, we will now eat. Perhaps this time tomorrow, we will eat.

{DaH wa'leS maSop} similarly suggests that right now, we will eat tomorrow. Again, this time tomorrow, we will eat.

Can you think of a better way of saying, “We will eat this time tomorrow,”? Especially if there’s context. We stand together and I point to my watch and say, {DaH wa'leS maSop.} They do have chronometers, after all...

I doubt that Klingon treats adverbials grammatically differently from one another if they answer different questions (why, how, when). A time stamp is a noun. {DaH} is not a noun. I know. That’s weird. But true.

{DaHjaj} is a noun. {DaH} is not. They both tell you the same thing — when — but DaHjaj is a time stamp, and {DaH} is an adverbial, which is not really a time stamp, even if it does exactly the same thing that a time stamp would do.

I think it goes back to deixis. {DaH} is a very specific deictic reference. {DaHjaj} is somewhat more vague, based on the day, rather than on immediacy.

Hmm. Then again, {naDev} is a very similar deictic reference… and it’s a noun. See? I thought I saw order, but I was wrong. It’s SOO tempting.

Like I said, Klingon is a messy language. Try to find TOO much order in it and that way goes madness. There be dragons…

Turn back while there’s still time!

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Nov 2, 2015, at 3:29 PM, Lieven <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Okay, I need to explain or clarify why I asked for "true adverbs", because I sometimes expect to understand people to know what I'm thinking.
> 
> As far as I know, and you certainly agree, there are different kinds of adverbials: Some of them tell WHEN something happens, some tell HOW something happens.
> 
> I believe that Okrand did not think of classifying them like that - to keep TKD short - so it's still possible that these must have some kind of order (this need to be verified and proven).
> 
> My theory is that adverbs of the same type cannot occur on the same time:
> {DaH tugh maSop} makes no sense
> {DaH nom maSop} does make sense
> 
> From the "time-stamp" point of view, {DaH} and {tugh} seem to have the same function as {wa'leS} or {vagh rep ret}: They also cannot be used in the same time. It makes no sense to say {wa'leS DaH maSop} or {DaH wa'leS maSop}.
> 
> What I mentioned as "true" adverbs (I know the term is wrong) were those adverbs which describe HOW something happens, in which matter.
> 
> So, my question was: Do we have any examples of phrase with multiple adverbs which are NOT timestamps, and not adverbs which work like {vaj} referring to the previous phrase?
> 
> ------
> 
> When I compare Okrands examples and think about my theory, then the following phrase should be theoretically correct:
> 
> {vaj DaH batlh maHegh}
> 
> I need to think more about the other words to see how much it would make sense adding those.
> 
> All of this is quite theoretical at this time and definitely an advanced speaker's discussion. I suggest beginners to learn how to say simple phraes before talking about such a subject.
> 
> -- 
> Lieven L. Litaer
> aka Quvar valer 'utlh
> Grammarian of the KLI
> http://www.facebook.com/Klingonteacher
> http://www.klingonwiki.net
> 
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