[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[SuStel]

On 2/11/2016 10:05 AM, lojmIttI'wI'nuv wrote:
> Placing two nouns next to each other does not make them a genitive pair.

No, but placing two nouns next to each other, in which the first noun 
modifies the meaning of the second noun, DOES make them a genitive pair.

> The absence of other reasons to be together makes them a genitive pair.

This statement is hogwash. Genitive means something other than "not 
something else."

> If they were followed by a conjunction, they would not be a genitive
> pair.

Because the first would not be modifying the meaning of the second.

> If there was a comma between them or could otherwise be
> interpreted as apposition, they would not be a genitive pair.

Because the first would not be modifying the meaning of the second.

> If the
> first noun is a person’s name and the second noun is a military rank and
> the pair of words identifies the same person, it is not a genitive pair.

Because the first would not be modifying the meaning of the second.

> With a Type 5 suffix on the first noun, you have a reason to assume that
> they are not a genitive pair.

Unless the first noun is modifying the meaning of the second noun, which 
makes them a genitive pair.

Do you understand what genitive means now?

> You are fixated on the idea

Do not tell me what I am fixated on, bub.

> that despite what is clearly stated in TKD,
> a genitive pair can have a Type 5 suffix on the first noun, and you have
> no justification for this idea.

WHOA, NELLIE! I am saying that this is ILLEGAL, not allowed. I am saying 
that it appears in cannon DESPITE the fact that it is illegal. I am 
saying that we have no explanation for why this apparently illegal 
formation is being used.

As usual, you have completely misunderstood what I'm saying, and have 
built a straw man to knock over.

> If {telDaq wovmoHwI’mey} were a genitive pair, it would mean something
> like “the lights of the at the wing”, or “the at the wing’s lights”. I
> fail to see that as a superior translation to the simpler sentence
> fragment: “At the wings, lights.” It is, after all, a sentence fragment.
> Nobody is arguing that it is a complete sentence. Generally speaking,
> sentence fragments can be inserted into sentences without changing the
> grammatical interpretation of the words.

It clearly means "on-the-wing lights." What kind of lights? On-the-wing 
lights. That's a genitive construction. The first noun modifies the 
meaning of the second.

Reading it as "at the wing, (there are) lights" is forced.

It's even more forced when you do it for {QamchIyDaq 'uQ'a'}, which 
Okrand wrote as a translation of "The Feast at Qam-chee."* He was given 
the phrase "The Feast at Qam-chee," and he translated it as {QamchIyDaq 
'uQ'a'}. It doesn't come from "The Feast (That Was) at Qam-chee" or "The 
Feast (Where People Ate) at Qam-chee." Okrand took a perfectly normal 
English noun+preposition and translated it too literally, breaking a 
rule. Either he did it deliberately and we don't know the justification, 
or he did it accidentally and may or may not retrofit a justification later.

But claiming that {QamchIyDaq 'uQ'a'} means "At the Feast (Which Was) at 
Qam-chee" or something like it is a very thinly stretched justification. 
WHY would someone chop off the verb?!

* Not only is the order of translation obvious from the way the book
   was written, it's explicitly written into the fictional background of
   the text. The Klingon is a translation from English, not the original
   Klingon story.

> If you take the genitive pair {HoD taj} “captain’s knife”, and insert it
> into a sentence, like {HoD taj vIHo’}, “I admire the captain’s knife,” I
> have not changed the meaning of the genitive pair.

That is correct.

> If I take the sentence fragment {telDaq wovmoHwI’mey} and place it in a
> sentence {telDaq wovmoHwI’mey vIHo’}, I would not be tempted to
> interpret it as a genitive pair. “At the wings, I admire the lights.” I
> would not interpret that to be “I admire the lights of the at the
> wings,” or “I admire the at the wings’s lights.”

Right. Because the rule says you're not allowed to do that. Thus, you're 
not talking about wing lights (which is what the poster is supposedly 
labeling) but just lights.

And since I'm saying that {telDaq wovmoHwI'mey} is an ILLEGAL formation 
that nevertheless appears in canon, it's going to cause all sorts of 
other problems when you try to use it in a sentence BECAUSE it is illegal.

> Yes, I can see the way you could call that a genitive relationship
> between the location and the thing at the location, since the location
> describes or identifies the noun,

Exactly. The location describes or identifies the noun. {telDaq} 
describes or identifies {wovmoHwI'mey}. GENITIVE.

> but whether you like it or not, we
> actually DO have the rule that you can’t put the Type 5 on the first
> noun of a genitive noun-noun construction,

Yes, we do. Thus, since you agree that {telDaq} is modifying the meaning 
of {wovmoHwI'mey}, so that we're not just talking about lights but about 
lights that are on the wings, you must agree that this is an illegal 
genitive construction that, nevertheless, exists in canon. QED.

> and the resulting translation
> enjoying the benefit of this rule is in no way inferior to your
> preference to tweak the translation

I'm tweaking nothing. The translation of {telDaq wovmoHwI'mey} is "wing 
lights." Not "at the wing, lights."

In fact, I'm sure Okrand was given the English phrase "wing lights" and 
came up with {telDaq wovmoHwI'mey}, not the other way round. Nobody gave 
him "at the wings, lights" or anything like it.

> so that it can violate the rule and
> prove to the Universe the perfection of your personal understanding of
> how the language really works, despite clear description in TKD to the
> contrary.
>
> [sigh]

Sigh indeed. You have completely misunderstood the argument, then 
condescend.

> Okay, I’ll step into a parallel Universe where this rule never existed.
> Everything is exactly the same, except that Okrand never stated the
> rule, or if he did, he later recanted it, or just left us hints so that
> we would figure it out on our own.
>
> What do we gain here? How is this better than the Universe we actually
> live in?
>
> If we could interpret {telDaq wovmoHwI’mey vIHo’} to mean “I admire the
> lights of the at-the-wing.” We would also be able to interpret it as “At
> the wing, I admire the lights.”
>
> There would be no syntactic difference to let us know which meaning the
> sentence had. It would be ambiguous… exactly like it already is.
>
> In both Universes, we could be at the wing, admiring the lights, or we
> could be on the planet below, looking through a powerful telescope and
> admiring the lights located on the wing. There is nothing gained in
> terms of the ability to express meaning. We’d have exactly the same
> ambiguity that we already have.
>
> So, why bother declaring the rule void?

Who has done that? Not me. You made that up. I said it has been 
violated; I didn't say it was void. I want an EXPLANATION, not an 
abandonment.

> What does it get us? How do we
> gain by it? How is our understanding of the workings of the language
> improved? What new forms of expression are we capable of making?
>
> I don’t see any. Could you provide some evidence of improved expressive
> capacity for the language?

Have fun playing in your pile of straw.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name