[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[SuStel]

On 2/11/2016 2:52 PM, lojmIttI'wI'nuv wrote:

>>> 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.

That is not correct. In {HoD qama' je}, {HoD} does not identify or 
distinguish {qama'} in any way. The scope or meaning of {qama'} is not 
in any way altered by being conjoined by {HoD}. This is not genitive.

> 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.

That is not 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.

Meaning I'm the one trying to "root out all genitive relationships," 
which I'm not, hence your misunderstanding of my argument.

>>> 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.

In some languages, apposition a genitive function. Klingon is not one of 
them.

>>> 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.

Okrand has never addressed "cat in the hat." He HAS addressed "elephant 
in my pajamas," but it was in regards to whether a syntactic noun 
applied to a relative clause or a main clause:

    One of the things you talk about was ambiguity. "{DujDaq puq
    DaqIppu'bogh vIlegh}," <I see the child who you hit on the ship>, or
    <on the ship I see the child...> and that's ambiguous. I thought
    about it and I said "That's fine." And it's ambiguous in exactly the
    same way that English is. You want ambiguity in language, I would
    think. It's not math.

     I was reading this bit about "I see the child you hit on the ship,"
     and for whatever reason what popped into my head was Groucho
     Marx, that old Groucho Marx joke, you know, "I just shot an
     elephant in my pajamas... and how he got in my pajamas I'll never
     know." You can say that in Klingon, no problem; they'll get the
     joke. There's not many jokes you can get to translate into Klingon,
     but that one would work.

>> 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.

Because, as usual, he is writing for the layman, not the linguist, and 
provides simplified terms for complex topics.

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

Don't ever compare me with Fox News.

> 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.

Nonsense. Utter nonsense.

I say it's far more likely that Okrand simply didn't notice he was 
violating a rule when he translated these phrases, than that he had a 
special phrasing in mind that totally fails to appear, like "on the 
wings, (there are) lights."

One or two violations of the rule does not mean the rule is invalid, and 
I challenge you to show me where I ever said such a thing ('cause I 
didn't). My original post was simply, "Lookee here! A rule broken!"

Just as I'm not going to demand the elimination of {net} because Okrand 
has occasionally used {'e' Xlu'}, so I'm not demanding the elimination 
of the N5-N rule because he has occasionally broken it.

> Your motive appears to be to use the canon as a lever to remove an
> inconvenient rule.

WRONG.
WRONG.WRONG.
WRONG.WRONG.WRONG.
WRONG.WRONG.WRONG.WRONG.
WRONG.WRONG.WRONG.WRONG.WRONG.

Got it? Now stop telling me what my motivations are. Don't tell me I'm 
fixated on things. Don't psychoanalyze me or anyone else.

My motive was to say "look, a broken rule." That's it. No followup, no 
demands, no hints.

> 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.

NOPE.

It fails for me because it's trying REALLY hard to justify something 
that may very well just be an error, without really facing the fact that 
it may be an error. You're assuming that anything that MIGHT be 
explicable by some kind of logic CANNOT be an error.

> 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.

Oh, I believe you. I just think you need to stop assigning motives to 
people.

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

I don't.

> There is no reason that the wing and the lights need any form of
> grammatical link between them.

Except that the original from which Okrand translated uses a genitive 
noun phrase, "wing lights." You don't see why {telDaq wovmoHwI'mey} 
REEEEEEALLY looks genitive?

> They are not participating in a sentence.

Irrelevant.

> The location of an unspecified action is the wing.

There is no unspecified action. This is a label. Those are wing lights. 
They're not DOING anything, any more than my monitor is doing something 
when I label it {De'wI' jIH}.

> 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.

HENCE IT IS AN ILLEGAL NOUN-NOUN.

Let's try something else. Can you demonstrate, WITHOUT INVOKING THE 
NO-SYNTAX-MARKER-ON-N1 RULE, that {telDaq wovmoHwI'mey} is not a 
genitive construct?

Why not invoke that rule? Because my point is that the rule is violated. 
If I tried to prove that you were breaking the law by speeding, you 
can't defend yourself by saying that 30 miles per hour was the speed 
limit so you couldn't have been speeding.

> 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.

Interpreting a noun with {-Daq} as ERRONEOUSLY modifying another noun is 
not forced. Okrand goofed. Simple.

Do you go to such lengths to interpret TKD's {lujpu' jIH'e'} "I, and 
only I, have failed" as not an error?

>> 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?

Certainly not. BECAUSE IT IS AN ERROR.

> 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.

NO I AM NOT.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name