[1045] in tlhIngan-Hol
Klingon on road signs!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Jun 25 18:58:38 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: (Mark E. Shoulson) <shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 16:58:51 -0400
In-Reply-To: mark's message of Fri, 25 Jun 93 11:38:21 EST <9306251138.A06760@d
>From: mark <mark@dragonsys.COM>
>Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 11:38:21 EST
>Content-Length: 566
>HoD qengvo':
>> Wouldn't
>> tlhIngan Hol 'e' majatlh naDev
>> work for "Klingon language spoken here"?
>Not very well. ma- means "we" subject and no object, or an
>understood object. The Type 5 verb suffix -lu' "indefinite
>subject" would fit this situation very well; in general, English
>passive forms often are well expressed with -lu'. Thus:
>naDev tlhIngan Hol jatlhlu'
Or, if you want to retain the active voice and the meaning, "we speak
Klingon here", you can use "naDev tlhIngan Hol wIjatlh". Words like
"naDev" and other adverbial phrases, or generally anything not the
subject, verb, or object, come at the beginning of a clause. You only use
the pronoun "'e'" to nominalize a whole clause as the object of another.
Here, the object is "tlhIngan Hol", a noun phrase, so it doesn't use "'e'".
And, as the other Mark said, "ma-" is for zero-object; "wI-" is for
third-person singular.
>- marqem
~mark
