[236] in tlhIngan-Hol
more rovers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Mar 22 18:51:11 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: lschoen@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Lawrence Schoen)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 92 16:55:40 CST
Captain Krankor's remarks have inspired me to a few comments and questions
by way of reply.
First, in reference to my example of <<yIHoHqu'Ha'Qo'>> he says:
/There is not much ambiguity about the fact that <<-Ha'>> always goes right
/after the verb. The rule given is very explicit, and I have seen not
/a single counter-example.
I agree that I haven't seen a counter example, and indeed the idea of
interposing a rover between the verb and <<-Ha'>> strikes me as
inappropriate as well And of course Okrand tells us that it seems only
tradition that classes <<-Ha'>> as a rover.
Similarly I agree with his supposition that use of <<-qu'>> is probably
quite rare, prosodic features of stress and loudness being adequate in most
cases. And yet, why have such a feature available if it is so rare? Of
course it may exist purely for literary use, as such it seems unlikely that
an informant such as <<matlh>> would bother to provide it. Still, this is
just speculation.
Now, on to my new improved rover question.
Since we are told explicity that <<-be'>> cannot be used with imperatives,
how do we produce an utterance such as "Don't not kill me" (assuming for
the moment that we contrive a context where such a statement seems
plausible)?
HIHoHQo' Only give us "don't kill me"
HIHoHHa'Qo' gives us "don't mis-kill me" which isn't quite right
(and of course assumes we allow multiple rovers)
*HIHoHbe'Qo' looks like the right translation, but is ungrammatical.
So, how do we do it?
- Lawrence
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| Dr Lawrence M Schoen, lschoen@casbah.acns.nwu.edu |
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| The Klingon Language Institute |
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