[Tlhingan-hol] Type 5 on first noun

[Brent Kesler]

A slightly different can of worms...

I briefly considered proposing {QamchIyDaq 'uQ'a' bop} as a chapter title,
and possible source for the shorter {QamchIyDaq 'uQ'a'}. However, if
{QamchIyDaq} MUST modify the verb, the sentence would mean something like
"At QamchIy, the chapter performs the action of being about a feast".
Presumably the chapter would perform a different action at Krotmag, or no
action at all.

That is not what the chapter title means. I think that's uncontroversial.

I have another proposal. I have no evidence to support it, and it feels
like grasping, but I'm going to put it out there.

What if N1-5 N2 is possible only at the start of a clause? In other words,
Klingons would understand {QamchIyDaq 'uQ'a'} as a noun phrase on its own,
but would reject using that noun phrase as the subject of a sentence
because N-5 has a stronger connection to a verb than it does to a noun.
(N-5 V) overrides any (N1-5 N2).

If we want to use a Chomskyan deep structure explanation, we start here:

1. *Dun QamchIyDaq 'uQ'a'.
    The feast at QamchIy was wonderful. (ungrammatical).


At that point, the verb tells the noun to surrender its N-Daq and puts the
N-Daq in it's own cargo hold at the beginning of the sentence.

2. QamchIyDaq Dun 'uQ'a'.
   The feast at QamchIy was wonderful.

We might quibble about the semantics of sentence 2, but I think it works.


Now suppose we wanted to say something like "At QamchIy, the warrior by the
statue fought". In other words, there is some warrior by some statue, and
I'm saying that he fought once in QamchIy.

3. *QamchIyDaq Suvpu' HewDaq SuvwI'.


Now the verb says "All N-Daq belong to me! {HewDaq SuvwI'}, surrender yours
at once!" The verb takes {HewDaq} and tries to fit it in its cargo hold,
but the hold is full, so it jettisons one of the N-Daq. If we want to
express the idea, we have to recast the sentence.

4. HewDaq SuvwI' yIqel. QamchIyDaq Suvpu'.


Now consider the example from earlier, "I stroke the handle on the knife."

5. ?tajDaq ret'aq vIyach.


Again, the verb looks menacingly at the noun phrase and says, "{ret'aq}!
Surrender your {tajDaq} at once!" And {tajDaq} replies, "I am your loyal
servant; I've already put it in your cargo hold." The verb replies, "Very
well then. Carry on."


So that's my proposal. You can put o Type 5 on N1 as long as there's no
verb to claim the N1-5 for itself.


bI'reng

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:41 AM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> 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. 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.
>
> If the chapter title had been, say, "The Feast at Qam-Chee was
> wonderful", he'd have probably realised that he couldn't just stick
> {QamchIyDaq} in front of {'uQ'a'} like that to make a noun-noun
> construction. But that's not what he had to translate.
>
> De'vID:
> >> Other labels on the poster also take similar grammatical shortcuts:
> >> {nISwI' talmey: cha' (telDaq lujomlu')}
>
> SuStel:
> > There is no indication that any other titles in paq'batlh take
> grammatical
> > shortcuts, and there is a statement by Okrand that the translation is
> > formal, not conversational.
>
> I don't have the paq'batlh on me right now. Are all the titles full
> sentences? I thought at least some of them were just nouns.
>
> De'vID:
> >> What's the grammatical relationship between {nISwI' talmey} and {cha'}
> >> here? According to TKD, "Numbers used as modifiers precede the noun
> >> they modify." If we're going to be that literal, then what you have in
> >> that label is the noun construction {nISwI' talmey} and the number
> >> {cha'}, with no grammatical relationship between them.
>
> 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.
>
> 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?
>
> 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"
>
> {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)"
>
> If he had been given "wing-mounted disrupter cannons", I'm sure the
> result would've been {telDaq nISwI' talmey lujomlu'pu'bogh}, and if
> the original phrasing of the contentious translation had been "Lights
> (Wing Mounted)", the translation would've come out as {wovmoHwI'mey
> (telDaq lujomlu')}. He's writing (perhaps ungrammatical) Klingon
> snippets to match the (likewise not quite grammatical) English
> snippets.
>
> 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}.
>
> 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.
>
> --
> De'vID
>
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