[473] in tlhIngan-Hol
re: tlhIngan ghItlhmey; the comparative construction
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Jan 29 10:48:04 1993
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: mark <mark@dragonsys.COM>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 09:37:38 EST
HoD lughmoHghachmey vIlaj.
But his observations on the comparative construction remind me of
a peculiarity of the grammar that even pabwi''a' 'oQaD* seems to
have glossed over. The formula
A Q law' B Q puS ,
he tells us (p. 70),
"[t]hus [...] says
A's Q is many, B's Q is few
or
A has more Q than B has
or
A is Q-er than B
." [using layout to replace italics]
But while law' and puS are verbs ('be many', 'be few'), the syntax
here is very far from normal Klingon verb syntax. If the
expression "A Q", meaning 'A's Q(-ness)', is to be taken as the
subject of law', what's it doing *before* it? And for that
matter, "A Q" looks like a noun-noun construction, while Q is a
"verb expressing a quality or condition"; where else in Klingon do
we see a verb functioning as the *name* of a quality?
I'm not suggesting that Q really is a noun, or that "A Q" really
is the subject of law' (and "B Q" of puS). Okrand's three
paraphrases of the comparative formula are only meant to help us
'InglIS lujatlhbogh tera'nganpu' get a handle on it. This
construction is just one of those things that turn up in a
language that make no sense if analyzed into their parts. We'll
probably need a lot of historical information on Klingon (Old
Klingon, Middle Klingon, Early Modern Klingon... ah, my!) before
we can ever figure out why the modern Imperial language forms
comparatives the way it does.
* 'oQaD is my attempt at "reconstructing the original Klingon
form" of Okrand. See p. 58. Apparently the pabwI''a' speaks a
prenasalizing dialect, that is, one in which D is pronounced nd
(p. 14).
- marqem
Mark A. Mandel
Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA
tlhIngan Hol Daghojbe'chugh vaj bIHegh
