[446] in tlhIngan-Hol
ghIQghachwIj
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon Jan 11 13:37:09 1993
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
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: Mon, 11 Jan 93 12:20:02 -0500
Hmmm. I followed your response, but I'm writing in English because I'm
talking about it, not to it. I hope you (and everyone else) don't mind the
critique...
>From: Letty Smith <lettuce@u.washington.edu>
>Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 09:58:54 -0800 (PST)
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>yuQ tera'nganDaq vIghiQpu'. tIch tera'ngan HujQu'.
If you're using the locative (yuQ tera'nganDaq), then "ghIQ" has no object,
so you should use "jIghIQpu'". You blew word-order in the second sentence,
as you did a lot. If you mean "Terran insults are very strange", it should
be "Hujqu' [note: not Qu'] tIch tera'ngan". Remember, subject at the end.
Maybe you meant "tIgh" (custom) and not "tIch" (insult), but that makes
little difference.
>Doch wa'DIch Hujbogh 'e' nuHmey qengQo' Hoch. reH tuv Doch je.
"'e'" and "-bogh" are tricky critters to use. As I see it, "'e'" makes a
sentence into an object, and I finally thought of a good way of thinking
about when you'll need it: whenever you use an infinitive in English, start
thinking about "'e'". "I like to eat": "jISop 'e' vItIv". Similarly with
gerunds (verbs used as nouns): "I enjoy eating" (same trans). Also,
whenever the object is a whole clause, like "I saw you kill them": "DaHoH
'e' vIleghpu'". The object is the *clause* "you kill them". See? These
aren't guaranteed to give you all the cases and only those cases you'll
need "'e'", but it's a start.
"-bogh" also makes clauses behave like nouns, but in a different fashion.
It makes the clause a description of its head noun (the noun that's spelled
out and not elided; if both subject and object appear in the sentence, use
"-'e'" [the *suffix* 'e', not the pronoun discussed in the above paragraph]
to show which is the head. Note that this appears nowhere in the
dictionaries, but has been sanctioned by Okrand, ask Krankor). You don't
have to use "'e'" with it to nominalize the sentence, "-bogh" handles it
for you. "I see the prisoner you killed": "qama' DaHoHpu'bogh vIlegh".
Note in passing: for intransitive verbs (ones which don't take objects),
"V-bogh N" (for V verb and N noun) is equivalent to "N V". How so?
Consider section 4.4, "Adjectives". "A tired child" is glossed as "puq
Doy'", where "Doy'" is "be tired", a verb. This seems to be a special
construction for intransitive verbs. "A tired child" really is the same as
"a child who is tired", with a relative clause. Thus, it's the same as
"Doy'bogh puq", right?
If you meant "the first strange thing was that everyone refused to carry
weapons," you've got another problem. Remember that Klingon doesn't really
have a copula ("was" in this sentence). The best you can do is use
pronouns as verbs and tag the second member with the "-'e'" suffix. I'd
probably wind up with something like "nuHmey qengQo' Hoch 'e' 'oH Doch
wa'DIch Huj'e'" (yow, in typing that I nearly left out the 'oH myself!).
Dunno if "qeng" is the right word, though; it's glossed as "convey" also.
> not jach
>tera'nganpu', not Suv tera'nganpu'. tachmey Dalqu'.
First two sentences good, then you blew word-order again on last one:
"Dalqu' tachmey". Subject at the end...
>Soj tera'ngan QIvqu' je. reH Sojchaj lupub qoj lumeQ. reH Solchaj luHoH
>vaj luSop. tI luSop jay'! jIyay'pu'!
Again, word-order. "QIvqu' Soj tera'ngan je" (Terran food is very
inferior, too). Second sentence good, I think the use of "qoj" is correct
here. The "Sol" in the third sentence looks like a typo, should have been
"Soj"? "vaj" doesn't mean "then" in the sense of "after which", it means
more like "in that case". You mean "They always kill their food before
they eat it," so you can say "reH Sojchaj luHoH ('oH) luSoppa'". That's
what that "-pa'" suffix is for. Hey, don't Klingons eat plants
occasionally too? OK, OK, that's outside the discussion... :-)
>rut Ho'du'chaj 'ang 'ang tera'nganpu'. "smile" lupong. qaDbe'
>"smile"-vam. Quchghachmo' lu"smile".
Dittography on "'ang"; simple typo. I never did understand how to use a
verb like "pong", which has two objects ("I name it 'Herman'"; both "it"
and "'Herman'" seem to be objects. Should I use "-vaD" for one? I don't
know.) Good use of "-mo'" and "-ghach" in last sentence.
>tlhIngan wo'Daq jIH 'e' vIQuchqu', 'ach vI"smile"Qo'bej!
"Quch" isn't transitive, I think, so it can't take "I'm in the Klingon
empire" as its object. If you mean "so I'm happy", maybe "tlhIngan wo'Daq
jIH 'e'mo' jIQuchqu'". I've never seen suffixes on "'e'", but I don't see
why not. It's still strange though.... Would just "vaj jIQuchqu'" be
enough? Oh, and since it's intransitive, the last word should be
"jI"smile"Qo'bej", I think.
>DrujIv
~mark
