[Tlhingan-hol] nuqDaq ghaH 'arHa'e'?

[De'vID]

lojmIt tI'wI' nuv:
> Your reference to an earlier discussion points to a single message by you, which hardly seems conclusive to anyone but perhaps you.

I linked to the first message that started the discussion, because
that's the only way to link to a thread in the KLI mailing list.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the summary of the counterargument seems
to be, "that's how the core members of the KLI have always interpreted
it." And that's my point: what KLI members consider good Klingon isn't
restricted to canon, it also consists of interpretations that they've
layered on top of it.

The best way to see that the KLI's interpretations aren't necessarily
obvious or universal is to spend some time around beginners whose
first language isn't American English (like at the qepHom in Germany).
There are a number of words whose English definitions are ambiguous,
which have been consistently interpreted in one way on the KLI mailing
list (dominated by American English speakers), but which beginners
whose first language isn't English and have to consult an English
dictionary don't interpret in the same way. {mIS} is just the most
obvious example.

In fact, it's such an obvious and self-referential example that I
can't believe it's not a deliberate joke, like the listing of
{bachHa'} as a noun. Most English-to-other-language dictionaries have
two (or more) entries for "be confused". When an English word has
multiple unrelated meanings, Okrand has disambiguated them in TKD by a
second definition which narrowed the sense of the first (e.g., "lie,
fib" vs. "lie, recline"). Thus, one would expect to see the following
entries:

{mIS} v. be confused, mixed up
{missing verb} v. be confused, perplexed

I believe that Okrand couldn't pass up an opportunity to make a clever
joke and left out the "be confused, perplexed" entry on purpose. If
{mIS} meant what you think it meant, there would have been no reason
for it to be glossed as "mixed up", which can only serve to
disambiguate it from the other sense of "be confused". He could've
left the definition as "be confused" without a disambiguating second
definition, in which case most people would've interpreted it in the
sense of mental perplexity (because that's the more common meaning of
"be confused" in English), which makes me believe that he added "mixed
up" on purpose.

lojmIt tI'wI' nuv:
> The form of the gloss, "be confused" suggests that it is likely a verb that can be adjectival, like "be big" or "be red, orange". These words generally don't take direct objects. You can't "be red" something.

Where has anyone suggested otherwise? I agree it's an adjective. That
it describes a property of the subject is exactly my point.

lojmIt tI'wI' nuv:
> The twins in your example might be often confused (for each other by someone else) but that confusion requires a third party as the agent of the confusion. The twins aren't actually doing anything. You are using the passive voice to hide the subject. No subject similarly be red something. But someone else must be in a state of confusion over the identity of the twins.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it
still make a sound? Yes, actually, it does. Something can actually be
{chuS} without anyone around to hear it. {'echletHommey mIS} makes
perfect sense to describe a mixed-up (physically confused) deck of
cards regardless of whether anyone's around to be (mentally) confused
by them. The fact that someone must be bored in order for something to
be boring doesn't mean that {Dal} has a hidden subject, and the fact
that something can be essential only with respect to something else
doesn't mean that {'ut} has a hidden subject. Like {ghIH} "be messy",
{mIS} "be confused, mixed up" is a property of the subject of the
verb, in languages where such a verb (or adjective) exists.

This is much more clear to speakers of languages in which "be
confused, mixed up" (physically) is a completely different and
unrelated word to "be confused, mentally perplexed". The fact that
other languages have separate words for these concepts doesn't mean
that Klingon does too, but the two meanings of "be confused" are not
as tightly or obviously related as you seem to think. It would be an
unfortunate coincidence if it just happened to be the case that
Klingon works exactly like American English.

I recognise that most KLI mailing list members consider {mIS} to mean
"be confused, mentally perplexed" by what ghuchu'wI' called "twenty
years of consistent usage" in the thread that I linked. I just think
that those people who have assumed that's what it means have missed a
joke that's obvious to people who speak languages where the two senses
of "be confused" map to different words, and have "confused" two
definitions of the word in a way that underlies the joke (and they are
"confused"). A literal reading of the definition doesn't imply mental
confusion. That's an extension of the given meaning. Perhaps Klingons
have the same idiom in this instance as American English speakers, but
that's "not canon".

And that's my point. The KLI mailing list has developed some
conventions which are, strictly speaking, not canon. There are
ambiguities in the canon, and the KLI mailing list has developed
conventions which are a matter of historical accident. It's not as
clear cut as qunnoQ HoD described.

-- 
De'vID