[Tlhingan-hol] vulqa'nganpu'

[Rohan Fenwick]

ghItlhpu' lojmIt tI'wI' nuv, jatlh:
> I respect that you are being as honest with your beliefs about
> how the language works as I am.

I appreciate your saying so, and as I've said before, I do have immense respect for your skills and experience in the language.

taH:
> I wish that either of us could find something that makes the
> difference in interpretation resolve somehow, though at this
> point, it’s not looking hopeful.
It seems not. But at the same time, there's no reason this couldn't just be a source of ambiguity in the language, just as a lack of {-'e'} in a relative clause makes the interpretation of the head noun superficially ambiguous. Both of us may well be right. I'm not trying to tell you that your natural reading is wrong. All I'm trying to say is that I believe the way I interpret the sentence also makes sense. Your initial statement was not of the nature of "this is the way I read that sentence". It was "there is no other way to read that sentence".

nungbogh QInDaq ghItlhpu' lojmIt tI'wI' nuv, jatlh:
> I'm more than a little certain that TKD explains that while we
> may translate Sentence As Object into one sentence in English,
> in Klingon, the two sentences are separate. A conjunction
> makes the two sentences one. They are no longer separate.

vIjangpu' jIH, jIjatlh:
> TKD 6.2.5 says nothing about the two sentences of an SAO being
> "separate". It does say that for this kind of construction, "what is
> a single sentence in English is often two sentences in Klingon"
> (TKD p.65). 
(poD vay')
> And the use of the word "often" here is indicative to me that there
> are times when the result of an SAO may be a single sentence.

mujang lojmIt tI'wI' nuv, jatlh:
> Interesting.> I had interpreted his choice of the word “often” to allude to there
> being other situations beyond that of SAO where Klingon would
> use multiple sentences to express what is one sentence in English.
> I had this interpretation because it’s obviously true. There are many
> examples of this in canon.

Oh, absolutely. I suppose for me it seemed unusual that this statement would be placed here specifically as opposed to in the more general section 6.2, or in an earlier subsection. So I read into it that although it's a generic truth about Klingon, it's also a more specific truth about this kind of construction.

taH:
> As for why the “two sentences” can’t be conjoined with a conjunction,
> very simply, the sole purpose and function of a conjunction is to form
> a single sentence from what was originally a pair of sentences. The
> result isn’t a pair of sentences. The result is a single sentence.

A single sentence composed of two sentences. A thing can be one and be another at the same time.

taH:
> There is no other purpose for a conjunction.

A conjunction's purpose is not merely to connect. That's a function it has, but not its sole purpose. Its purpose is to demonstrate the nature of the relationship between one sentence and the next: whether it's information that shows a contrast ({'ach}), an addition ({'ej}), an option ({qoj}), or an alternative ({pagh}). Otherwise there would only be one conjunction in the language.

taH:
> SuStel pointed out that {‘e’} doesn’t refer to a part of a sentence. It
> refers to a whole sentence.

Yes, it does. Happy to concur on that point.

taH:
> A conjunction redefines the boundaries of a whole sentence.

And that's where I disagree. A conjunction establishes new boundaries around a new whole sentence. But the two sentences that it joins are no less whole sentences for being smaller parts of a larger whole sentence, and their being sentences is unaffected by the fact that they also act as a subunit of a larger sentence. A sentence is not something that starts with the start of speech and ends at a period. A sentence is essentially a linguistic unit that can stand on its own as a complete utterance.

jIH:
> At any rate, after having sifted through the canon, I finally did
> find two examples in the paq'batlh, though with the conjunction
> {'ej} rather than {'ach}:
> SoHvaD quvwI' qem Hegh 'e' wIvDI' Hegh
> pop Hevchugh quvwI'
> 'ej 'e' DaqaSmoHchugh jIlaj
> "The honorable will be rewarded
> After death chooses to bring them to you,
> If you make it so, I accept."

lojmIt tI'wI' nuv:
> First, if we are dealing with stanzas, we are likely dealing with
> poetry, and Okrand has made it quite clear that poetry does not
> always follow the rules of grammar. See {tlhonmey}.

While this is theoretically true, the Klingon in the paq'batlh is also not only intended to be a fairly contemporary or popular rendition of a story normally told in no' Hol (see paq'batlh xxxi-xxxii), but also is simply the longest connected piece of Klingon text of any genre that we have.

taH:
> Second, this actually makes more sense to me if it DOES refer
> back to the previous stanza.

Fair enough - I cited it mainly for the sake of completeness, and your analysis does make sense too. I just don't want to be hiding any information, is all, and I could see already that {'e'} could have been reaching back further into the narrative.

(poD vay')

jIH:
> But then there's this example from a little later in the paq'batlh:
> mInDu'wIj tIbuS molor
> vay' qalay'ta'
> 'ej batlh 'e' vIpab
> "Look me in the eye, Molor,
> I gave you my word of honor,
> And I will respect it.”
lojmIt tI'wI' nuv:
> This is a better example of your point. It is an odd example, since
> the English puts a comma after “Molor” where a period obviously
> belongs.

To be fair, this is typical of the punctuation throughout the paq'batlh; the English is owed not to Marc, but to Floris Schönfeld and Kees Ligtelijn, I believe. Periods almost invariably appear only at the end of the third line of each three-line stanza: another example is "See the spy creeping, / He will feed on the weak-hearted, / See the targ, an easy prey." A full stop really should come at the end of both the first and second lines in the English rendition.

taH:
> It’s also odd that the English translates the literal “and I will
> honorably follow the rules that I have accomplished promising
> you something (unspecified),” as what amounts to “I will
> respect my word of honor, which I have given you."
Again, the English is, I believe, not Marc's. The Klingon rendition is functionally a translation of the English (not dissimilarly to what happened with the Skybox cards), not the other way around.

taH:
> Clearly, he doesn’t mean “I honorably follow the rules that
> [imperitive] look me in my eyes.” Unless there’s some cultural
> reference lost on us that looking me in the eyes implies rules
> that I have to follow honorably.

Which is possible, but a very long bow to draw.

taH:
> Actually, that doesn’t sound all that impossible. Molor knows
> that the speaker has made a promise. What set of rules is the
> speaker honorably saying he will follow? The rules of the
> promise, or the rules of what one does while one looks into
> another one’s eyes? One seems about as likely as the other.
> Either one requires that the audience understand the context
> of the rules.
I guess for me it's the path of least resistance. {vay' qalay'ta' 'e' vIpab} I can make work without the conjunction, as "I will obey [the fact] that I have promised you something". However, even without the conjunction I can't make {mInDu'wIj tIbuS 'e' vIpab} work in any kind of grammatical way for me. Not only is the grammar screwed for me by making {'e'} refer back to the imperative - trying to work out the semantics of having an imperative sentence in the role of object of the following sentence, which regardless of syntax is still a form of semantic subordination, is sending me up the wall - but "I will obey that you look me in the eyes" implies a submission of Kahless to Molor that's entirely inappropriate in this context (the canto is entitled {qaD} "The Challenge").

taH:
> But I, as audience, honestly don’t. It could be either one, so far
> as I can tell. Grammatically, either choice is strange. I’ve never
> seen an imperative sentence referred to by {‘e’} and I’ve never
> seen an independent clause conjoined to the sentence
> containing {‘e’} referred to by {‘e’}. Which do we have occurring
> here?

(poD vay')

> So, is this an example of Okrand clearly thinking through the
> grammar? Was there any poetic requirement of syllable count
> and emphasis affecting his word choice?

None that I know of. The typical stanza of the paq'batlh is three unequal lines (which I think, to be honest, was a simple way to allow what is essentially patterned as prose to be cast into a "poetic" form).

taH:
> Was there time pressure, and this is a long piece and he had
> to end this somehow?

I doubt that too. It certainly was a long piece; but Marc had a good couple of years working on the entire paq'batlh.

taH:
> Whatever it is, it’s not pretty.

With that, I'm tapping out on this topic at the end of this email. I'm happy to be proven wrong in an objective debate about what is or isn't grammatical based on canon, but with all respect, appealing to emotion is a fallacy of relevance and there's no fruitful discussion to be had once the discussion shifts into subjective opinions about what we do or don't find "pretty". It doesn't help us work out what is grammatical or ungrammatical Klingon.

taH:
> Okay, so write sentences as ugly as you like. I have no authority
> to stop you. You don’t have to convince me of anything.> But please don’t hold this up as an example to new speakers as
> to how a good Klingon sentence should be constructed. It’s not
> that good of an example.

It's a perfect example if what someone wants to know is whether or not this specific construction is possible in the language. In fact, qunnoQ asked me explicitly the other day about an example of this very construction that I had used without conscious thought in a response I'd written to one of his emails. I wasn't even aware of this canon example when I first answered him, and I wish I had been.

QeS 'utlh

 		 	   		  
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