[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[lojmIttI'wI'nuv]

SuStel, you are very good with the Klingon language and have been for a very long time. I do not want to fall into a rut disrespecting you because I disagree with a point you are very strongly attempting to make. I am taking your arguments seriously, and acknowledging that it is entirely too easy to fall into a kind of immature flame war and dismiss your points disrespectfully.

Since this argument has already gotten momentum into a bad direction, I’m starting over, here, now, trying really hard to accept as much of your argument as I can. I reply in-line below.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Feb 11, 2016, at 10:34 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> 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.

I agree that this is the function of a genitive pair. I do not believe that it is as simple and clean-cut as that. It’s not black and white. Judgement is required and the crux of our disagreement is on where we are drawing the line.

We can take this down a slippery slope pretty easily until every noun before the verb becomes one long genitive chain, regardless of Type 5 suffixes.

DujDaq HoDvaD yaSvo’ taj vInob.

I give the from-the-officer-for-the-captain-on-the-ship knife.

DujDaq can be interpreted to modify HoD, HoDvaD can be interpreted to modify yaS, yaSvo’ can be interpreted to modify taj. All we have to do is ignore the explicit rule we’ve been given in TKD, and grip tightly to a preference to interpret pairs of nouns as having genitive relationships.

The rule is basically telling us that a location is not genitive to a trailing noun. Reason is not genitive to a trailing noun. The beneficiary of the action of a verb does not have a genitive relationship to a trailing noun. A topic does not have a genitive relationship to a trailing noun. The definition of genitive could be stretched to include these concepts in other languages, but not in Klingon.

>> 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.”

All I’m saying is that nouns appear next to each other for different reasons, and when they don’t have some other reason to appear together, it’s safe to conclude that they are a genitive pair. I know that genitive does not mean “not something else”. I don’t believe that it is okay to ignore context and assume that all noun pairs should be evaluated for the possibility of a genitive relationship. Context is important. The Type 5 suffix is part of the context.

>> 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.

I’m not sure that’s true.

HoD qama’ je leghlaH yaS.

If the conjunction were not there, it would obviously be a genitive pair. We are using the captain to identify the prisoner. Which prisoner? The captain’s prisoner.

So, what does {je} do?

We could consider it to be context that tells us that the nouns are next to each other for a reason other than a genitive relationship, but if we really want to see genitive relationships wherever they can be found, we could say that {je} binds the two nouns together in such a way that we could ask, “Which prisoner can the officer see? It’s the one with the captain.” And so, {HoD} modifies {qama’} through that association, and we could call that a genitive relationship.

Most people wouldn’t really consider that reasonable, but if one were dedicated to rooting out all genitive relationships, there is one.

>> 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.

Well, not really. Apposition is commonly used to provide information additional information about the entity in question. “Brian, my son, is a fine chef.” The name “Brian” is further identified as my son. The two terms modify each other, because there are many Brians, but only one is my son, and I have two sons, but only one is Brian. So, if the definition of a genitive relationship is that one modifies the other, apposition is in this case bidirectionally genitive.

But that’s not what most people would consider to be reasonable. It’s a judgement call, and most judgement agrees, but that doesn’t mean that if one really wanted to push the idea that genitive is anything that modifies, they could push it here.

>> 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.

Once again, rank and name are each added information about one entity, aiding in identifying that entity, and so they do, in effect, modify each other. Lots of nouns modify each other without it being considered to be a genitive relationship.

>> 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.

We’re back to the cat in the hat, and the elephant in our pajamas, and I’m pretty sure that Okrand has talked about this and said that the language simply can’t go there. The grammatical tools are absent from the language.

> Do you understand what genitive means now?

I credit you for making me think about what genitive means far more than I ever had before in the context of Klingon, especially since Okrand never mentions the word in any of his materials.

>> You are fixated on the idea
> 
> Do not tell me what I am fixated on, bub.

I apologize for using a word that has more emotional weight than it should. You seem to be exceptionally focused on this idea. You seem remarkably resistant to alternative explanations coming from several sources.

>> 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.

I stand corrected. Your comments seem directed less at the illegality of the canon than on rejecting the idea that the nouns are placed next to each other for reasons other than a genitive relationship, which would eliminate the illegality.

It’s like Jon Stewart’s revamping of the Fox News motto: “Fair and balanced… if it were true.” 

It would be illegal if it were genitive. You reject the suggestion from several of us that it’s not genitive, so you insist that it is illegal, and since it’s canon, that suggests that the rule should be eliminated so that the canon then becomes legal.

Your motive appears to be to use the canon as a lever to remove an inconvenient rule. My motive is to accept the rule and use it to interpret the canon, and I don’t see a problem with that approach. It works. But it doesn’t work for you. I’m suspecting that it doesn’t work for you because it fails to justify tossing out the rule.

If I’m wrong about this, please inform me what your motive is. I don’t like accusing you unfairly of motives that you honestly do not have. I suspect you don’t believe that statement, but it is sincere.

You are not a villain. You are not an enemy. Sometimes, I have acted as if you were, and those are not times I’m proud of. There’s a better me in here, and I’m trying to make him a bigger part of me.

For me the question is, “Why do you have a problem with the rule?”

The canon can easily be interpreted without violating the rule. All you have to do is use the existing grammar to explain the meaning instead of making an interpretation of the meaning force the grammar to be illegal.

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

I’m trying to not do that. I’ve stopped myself from doing that several times. If I’ve failed to stop all instances of that, I honestly apologize. As I’m sure you know, it’s not easy to answer heat with cool, and entirely too easy to answer heat with more heat. We become like prisoners in a moving boxcar, standing in the dark, shoving each other back and forth, bruised against the walls with very little in the end to show for it. The fight becomes more important than whatever we are fighting for, and most of the time it’s started by the train lurching and no one was intentionally the instigator.

>> 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.

I see how you interpret that. The problem is that you are disinterested in seeing that it can simply be: “On the wing, lights.” The grammar does not have a construction to represent “on-the-wing lights”. Verbs have {meH} to modify nouns. Nouns don’t have a suffix to modify other nouns. We’ve been told that {-meH} can modify either nouns or verbs. We’ve been told that {-Daq} modifies verbs. There is no verb in this sentence fragment. So, we have two words. They are not modifying each other. They are part of a sentence fragment that is not bound to the rules of grammar that are specified for complete sentences.

There is no reason that the wing and the lights need any form of grammatical link between them. They are not participating in a sentence. The location of an unspecified action is the wing. The lights are either the subject or object of that unspecified action. Nothing is clear about the grammar because we don’t know the grammatical role of the lights.

You really want the location to modify the second noun, but Klingon grammar simply prevents it. {-Daq} on one noun never modifies another noun. It modifies verbs. It modifies action. It does not modify nouns.

It’s an alien concept. Klingons are aliens. They can do that.

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

Interpreting a noun with {-Daq} as modifying another noun 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.

It’s a loose translation, as many of his translations are. It’s how one says this sort of thing in English. How would you say, “The Feast at Qam-chee began an important tradition,”?

Are you ready to use this “noun phrase” as the subject of a sentence? If not, why not? And if so, why have we never seen anything remotely like it before? It is unprecedented, and this canon does not provide sufficient president to suggest that this is what we are working with here.

> 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?!

It’s a title. It’s a sentence fragment. It’s not a noun phrase that is ready for use as a subject of a sentence, which is ultimately what you are suggesting that it is.

> * 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.

That doesn’t change the fact that this is not a functional noun phrase that could be used as the subject of a sentence.

I need to stop. Time is my limit.

I respect you as one of the most talented Klingon speakers on the planet, and I also believe that you are arguing something that is much farther from being proven than you very sincerely believe it is. I trust your sincerity, and I think I do understand your idea of genitive, but I very honestly believe it is overstretched here, and not applicable.

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