[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[SuStel]

On 2/12/2016 11:41 AM, De'vID wrote:
> SuStel:
>> That is correct. But if the purpose of {QamchIyDaq} in the title is to
>> identify that the feast is taking place in Qam-chee, then that is a genitive
>> meaning, whether it's a noun-noun or not. Given that the original English
>> title uses the preposition "at Qam-chee" to identify which feast we're
>> talking about, can you not see the thinking that might lead someone, who had
>> forgotten about the type-5 rule, to do exactly the same thing in Klingon:
>> identify what feast he was talking about? TKD even says that "In other
>> instances, English indicates the function of nouns in a sentence by adding
>> words, particularly prepositions," and then goes on immediately to describe
>> {-Daq}.
>
> If your contention is that Okrand forgot a grammar rule (or several)
> while translating the paq'batlh chapter titles (which are not full
> sentences), that's probably true.

Thank you for admitting that.

> Klingon is deliberately verb-based. Asked to translate a noun phrase
> like "the feast at Qam-Chee", he probably just came up with each
> part, {QamchIyDaq} and {'uQ'a'}, and strung them together, without
> much thought. Is the result a noun-noun construction? It seems most
> Klingon speakers say no. The result is just a locative followed by a
> noun.

The result is not ALLOWED to be a noun-noun, but the words are illegally 
being USED in a noun-noun construction.

The words aren't arbitrarily placed together. He didn't give us 
{'uQ'a'[;] QamchIy}. He put them together in the REVERSE order of the 
English original. He went out of his way to rearrange them. There is 
only one reason why he'd do this: because the arrangement had some meaning.

The order of the words in English is important for their meaning. It's 
not "at Qamchee; the feast." The English consists of a phrase in which a 
prepositional phrase ("at Qamchee") modifies a noun ("feast").

Okrand describes in TKD how type 5 noun suffixes perform a function like 
prepositions. Saying {QamchIyDaq} is like saying the prepositional 
phrase "at Qamchee."

Okrand also describes in TKD how one noun can be put in front of another 
noun to modify its meaning. Speaking from experience, I know that when 
you do this a lot, it becomes very natural; it's one of the quickest 
things a student of Klingon learns to do. You can do it almost without 
thinking.

So my hypothesis is that Okrand did all of that. He recognized that the 
noun {QamchIyDaq} was the translation of "at Qamchee" he had in front of 
him, and he also recognized that he could put that noun in front of 
{'uQ'a'} to modify the meaning of {'uQ'a'} to show what feast the title 
refers to, all exactly parallel to what's written in English right in 
front of him.

Oops! He forgot all about the rule that you can't put a noun with -Daq 
in that first-noun position. Oh well.

Just like he produces the occasional {'e' Xlu'} instead of {net X} 
because, as we have all experienced, using {'e'} is a lot more common 
than using {net}, and hence a lot quicker to jump to the forefront of 
the translator's mind. Just like he translated "difficult to hit?" as 
{qIpmeH Qatlh'a'} even though being difficult is not the purpose of the 
hitting; he saw "to hit" and mentally translated it as a purpose clause 
even though it shouldn't have been one. Just like he had to invent the 
prefix trick to explain why he was coming up with prefixes that didn't 
agree with their objects.

We can come up with ludicrous justifications for these things all we 
want, but that's akin to saying that Okrand never makes mistakes, and 
anything that looks like one was an intentional bit of new grammar.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that Okrand may have put those two words 
together purposefully and knowing that he WASN'T violating the noun-noun 
rule. I'm also willing to accept that Okrand may have mistakenly 
violated the rule, and this is a suggestion that some here are simply 
unwilling to accept. I believe that it's a ridiculously common mistake 
to make. Beginners on this list make it all the time. It comes from 
thinking in English. Except for {'e'/net}, all of the examples in the 
above paragraph are caused by thinking in English and translating too 
literally.

Sorry, folks, but Okrand has ALWAYS done that.

> SuStel:
>> The relationship between {cha'} and {nISwI' talmey} is given by the colon.
>> "A colon precedes an explanation, or an enumeration or list." (Wikipedia)
>
> Except that the Latin transcription we use to write Klingon isn't what
> Klingons actually use to write Klingon. We don't know what
> punctuation, if any, Klingons use. We only know that a Klingon,
> reading what's on the poster (if it was written in {pIqaD}), would
> mentally think something like: {nISwI' talmey (probably a slight
> pause) cha'}, and have no problem understanding that there are two
> disruptor cannons, despite the odd grammar.

Labels are written, not spoken. These labels are written in the roman 
transcription. The transcription has punctuation. We can conclude 
nothing about Klingon grammar from this.

> If the Latin transcription on the poster had said {telDaq:
> wovmoHwI'mey}, and if the chapter title in paq'batlh had bee
> {QamchIyDaq: 'uQ'a'}, would those have been acceptable to you?

Yes, because then a legal relationship between the nouns would have been 
established.

> SuStel:
>> Interesting how they're not simply *{telDaq nISwI' talmey}, but this time
>> Okrand felt he had to specify that supposedly missing verb: {telDaq
>> lujomlu'}. And he DIDN'T say {telDaq nISwI' talmey lujomlu'}. Very
>> interesting indeed. Why do you think that is?
>
> Because he wrote the Klingon translations to match the English
> originals he was given:
>
> {telDaq wovmoHwI'mey} "Wing Lights"

He could have written {tel wovmoHwI'mey}, but he didn't.

> {nISwI' talmey: cha' (telDaq lujomlu')}
> "Disruptor Cannon - 2 (Wing Mounted)"
>
> {nISwI': cha' chang'engmey (telDaq lujomlu', nItebHa' lubaHlu')}
> "Disruptor - 2 Pairs (Wing Mounted, Fire Linked)"

So these are therefore not evidence that a "missing" sentence exists, 
since he's just translating what he was given in English.

See?

> He's writing (perhaps ungrammatical) Klingon snippets to match the
> (likewise not quite grammatical) English snippets.

The English snippets don't violate any rules. They are in this sense 
perfectly grammatical.

> Based on the other wing-mounted things on the poster, I'd read {telDaq
> wovmoHwI'mey} as an abbreviated form of {telDaq wovmoHwI'mey
> lujomlu'pu'bogh}.

Which he didn't say, and for which the abbreviation is not employed 
elsewhere.

I'm more and more liking my idea of [telDaq wovmoH]wI'mey...

> Considering that {muDDaq 'eDSeHcha lulaQlu'bogh} also appears on the
> poster, assuming that Okrand did all the translations together, he
> would've presumably been aware that you can't stick {telDaq} or
> {muDDaq} in front of another noun to form a noun-noun construction.

When you're not constructing a verbal clause, you're not looking to 
attach a -Daq noun to a verb. But if you still want a -Daq noun, you're 
potentially going to attach it to whatever word you DO have, especially 
if that's exactly what happens in the English. In the case of the verbal 
clause, the question of an illegal noun-noun would never even have 
occurred to Okrand because he wasn't trying to form one.

In other words, this proves nothing at all about whether Okrand was 
aware of the restriction or not. It only demonstrates that you can't 
fall afoul of it when you're building a verbal clause.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name