[Tlhingan-hol] roj

Sat Nov 7 17:15:45 PST 2015

Yes, I’m quite aware of what Okrand said during my interview with him. It was a long time ago, but hey, I was there.

In English, the subject or agent of a verb is a reliably consistent relationship, but direct objects really seem to be what is essentially the most common prepositional type of relationship — so common that we don’t even have a preposition for it. It’s the null preposition; the null helper word telling us what the relationship is between the noun and the verb.

The Moon goes around the Earth. That’s an obvious prepositional relationship between “go” and “Earth”, but the moon also orbits the Earth. There’s no preposition there. Moon has a relationship with “orbit” expressed as a direct object. It has a relationship with “go” expressed as a prepositional link. It just happens to be the same relationship, expressed with different grammar because of an arbitrary detail in the definition.

So, nouns other than the subject either get helper words to clarify what the relationship is between the action of the verb and the noun in question, or if it’s the direct object, you don’t get any helper words.

And in Klingon, {taj qanob}, or {SoHvaD taj vInob}. We refer to the first example as “the prefix shortcut”, but grammar is not a set of rules that exists before the expressions which use them. Grammar is a set of rules created by observing expressions and trying to find patterns within them that are consistent enough to predict the form of future expressions. Language comes first. Descriptions of grammar follow.

So, how do we know that it really is a “prefix shortcut”? Maybe there are just two different ways to express the relationship between these non-subject nouns and the action of the verb. Both indicate the same thing. You are the recipient of the knife that I am giving.

Even in English, we have a kind of shortcut because we don’t have a helper word for either the direct or indirect object, but we use word order to say “I give you the knife.” Then again, I have the option of saying, “I give the knife to you.”

So, every Klingon verb has a set of nouns that can be subject, a set of nouns that can be object (including, for some verbs, the null set), and a set of other nouns that can have a grammatical relationship with the verb, but they need a Type 5 noun suffix to explain to you what the noun is doing in relation to the verb. The “prefix shortcut” is an example of allowing indirect objects to not need {-vaD} to explain what they are doing in the sentence.

The glosses in the dictionary are vague definitions. They are intentionally vague so that Okrand can use them whenever he needs them for a very wide range of expressions. The glosses suggest a direct object or not because when he defined the word, he had in mind using it with a direct object or not, but he doesn’t want to limit the word so much that later, when he forgets what he originally intended, or when he just needs that other meaning that is not clearly expressed, he doesn’t want it to be a mistake to say it the other way.

In the interview, I pretty much expected him to stay squishy on {vIH}. But he didn’t. He was quite clear about it. The subject of {vIH} moves. If you want a subject to move something, the subject has to {vIHmoH} it.

So, my guiding principle is that the gloss is the best we have and the best we will get until Okrand says something in canon that either clarifies or stretches that gloss. I don’t stretch it for him.

And you seem to be fascinated by the opportunity to stretch it for him.

And that’s the crux of our disagreement.

You don’t need to stretch it. You have the tools to say stuff more clearly without it sounding weird. Why not learn to speak more clearly at this point, instead of making a point about how nobody should be able to tell you that what you say is weird because, hey, the glosses are vague and if you’d expect to have to use a Type 5 suffix on a noun to link it to the verb, why not just stretch the gloss to say it’s the direct object instead?

Well, the reason is that more than half the time, you can pretty much count on being wrong when you do that. You’d be wrong doing that with {vIH}, and the gloss for {vIH} is a lot more ambiguous than most of the verbs you’ve been playing with.

You seem determined to explore wrongness just to see where the edges are, and we’re telling you that you are spending most of your time on the wrong side of the edge, but you aren’t hearing it.

The horse is dead, Jim. Stop kicking it.

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably

> On Nov 7, 2015, at 7:00 PM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> De'vID:
>>>> I think it's uncontroversial that the above are allowed.
> 
> Quvar:
>>> I enjoy having neutral arguments, so I may say that I do not think these are uncontroversial. To me, they sound wrong.
> 
> ghunchu'wI':
>> I too think they sound wrong. You need to reassess your belief that they are uncontroversial.
> 
> I made a mistake in using "uncontroversial". (jIjatlhHa' 'e' vIQagh.
> :-) ) But my impression was that people would avoid producing such
> constructions, yet accept them when presented with them (i.e., follow
> what is called the robustness principle), and apparently I was wrong
> about this.
> 
> It's interesting that others think those sentences sound wrong. Do
> they all sound equally wrong? And how do they compare to {rojHom
> luroj} or {Hegh quv Hegh HoD}? Do these two sentences sound equally
> wrong as the others? What about {'IqnaH chuy} or {'Iw tuS}?
> 
> Do people accept {'e'} as the object of {nep}, {'Ip}, and {lay'}?
> 
> lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh:
>> While it may be true that perhaps {Hegh quv Hegh HoD} could mean “The captain died an honorable death,” you could just as easily have said {batlh Hegh HoD} to convey the same meaning, and likely you’d be understood by more people with less confusion or challenge.
> 
> Of all the verbs discussed in this thread, {Hegh} is the only one I
> have a strong opinion about that it works this way. I've heard Okrand
> accept that it works this way when an example in English was presented
> to him.
> 
> As for the rest, some of them "sound" wrong to me too. But I'm going
> by something that Marc Okrand has said generally about the English
> definitions not necessarily corresponding to whether the Klingon verb
> is what we would call transitive or not. Of course, his unprepared
> remarks during discussions are not canon, and he sometimes gets
> confused or changes his mind. But whenever transitivity has come up,
> he's been pretty consistent in insisting that the English definitions
> don't necessarily indicate what we call transitivity and that it may
> be possible to use a verb transitively which by its English definition
> looks intransitive.
> 
> He has even said this to you during this interview:
> http://klingonska.org/canon/1998-12-holqed-07-4.txt
> 
> As an illustrative example (my example, not his), English has verbs
> for "tell a lie", "make a vow", "make a promise", but not a verb for
> "tell the truth". A person putting together a dictionary for which
> these are all simple verbs can put down "lie", "vow", and "promise"
> for the first three, but must write "tell the truth" for the fourth.
> There is, of course, nothing that says a language must be consistent
> so that if you can say that "he lied that blah blah blah" then it
> necessarily has to allow "he truth-told that blah blah blah". (In
> fact, English is a language that does not allow this.) If Klingon had
> a verb for "make a speech" the object of which is speeches, we
> wouldn't be able to infer from the definition alone whether it took an
> object or not.
> 
> What is the difference between "make a joke" and "make a beverage"
> that makes it unlikely that the first verb takes an object while it is
> uncontroversial that the second one can? That's what I'm trying to
> determine. (Of course, the reason that the second is uncontroversial
> is because we have a section on cooking in KGT while thoroughly
> explains Klingon cuisine. But I am talking about the grammar and the
> bare dictionary definition only.)
> 
> lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh:
>> You’ve presented an argument. Many have responded suggesting that you are very likely incorrect. You don’t seem to be accepting any of this, but instead restate your original suggestion, repeatedly, without producing any additional evidence or argument to make your point stronger.
> 
> The reason I don't accept "the English definition seems to include the
> object already" as a reason for believing that the Klingon verb can't
> take an object is that Marc Okrand has said that this is an unreliable
> guide. The same argument would exclude an object for {ghob} "wage war"
> as for {roj} "make peace".
> 
> And I'm not sure what it is you think I should be accepting that I
> don't accept. I accept that there is no evidence either way until we
> receive a canon example, which we are unlikely to do. Beyond that,
> people have said only that such sentences "sound" wrong or odd. I
> accept that they do. I also think some of those sentences "sound"
> wrong myself. But why does "I make-peace a truce" sound wrong while "I
> prepare-beverage a root beer" sound right? I want to understand the
> difference, and whether there is a stronger case here than intuition.
> 
> -- 
> De'vID
> 
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