[806] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: additions to Klingon? (was Re: Two Exciting Announcemen
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue May 11 08:40:02 1993
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: A.APPLEYARD@fs1.mt.umist.ac.uk
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: 11 May 93 10:25:50 GMT
Elias Israel <eli@village.boston.ma.us> wrote on Mon, 10 May 93 08:34:17 EDT
(Subject: Two Exciting Announcements):-
> ... a way to get a small number of questions to Marc Okrand.... ... I'll
pick a handful of the most pressing questions and present them to Dr. Okrand.
... list of potential questions I've already compiled ...
> (5) Comparatives: can you turn verbs into nouns with -ghach and use them
in comparitive sentences? Ex: How would you say: "I am the captain because I
speak Klingon better than you."?
"X is A-er than Y" = `X A law' Y A pu'`
First try the "speak" clause alone:-
`tlhIngan-Hol vijatlhghach QaQ law' tlhIngan-Hol Dajatlhghach QaQ puS.`
Here many speakers would be tempted to abbreviate the repetition:-
`tlhIngan-Hol vijatlhghach QaQ law' li' QaQ puS.`
Now the complete sentence (note comma to say where the first clause ends):-
`tlhIngan-Hol vijatlhghach QaQ law'mo' li' QaQ puS, HoD jiH.`
I suspect that colloquially (= in Clipped Klingon) often the second `A` (and
sometimes the `pu'` also) is omitted, leaving `X A law' Y`.
> (9) What about metaphorical uses of prepositions, e.g.:
> "from monday to friday"
Why not use literal 'from' and 'to'? like many real languages do, treating
the journey through time as any other journey. But with a word like "meeting"
that has both a time and a place, beware of ambiguity between time and place
usages of these prepositions.
What about unreal conditions? E.g. "If the captain was here, he'd know what
to do."
What about "therefore", "with the (perhaps unintended) result that"? This is
distinct from purpose clauses (-meH).
I still think that we need a verb passivizer, so that (if V is a verb and P
is the passivizer suffix) "X V Y" can be translated as `Y V X` or `X VP Y`, so
that either the subject or the object can be got to the beginning or the end
of the clause when this is needed for clarity (including getting relative
clauses to one end of their main clauses rather than inside them), like the
English passive is often used for. Nested relative constructions are
confusing, and often I am tempted to clarify them by using brackets in the
mathematical grouping role rather then to parenthesize. "The House that Jack
Built" is a childish but valid example of an English multi-chain relative
construction made <much> clearer by use of the verb passive to get all the
component relative clauses to the ends of the clauses that call them.
