[83971] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Missing question words
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Trimboli)
Mon Jan 14 17:02:10 2008
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:58:54 -0500
From: David Trimboli <david@trimboli.name>
In-reply-to: <5FE1EB9E-6B25-46B5-9563-54DBA33FE8B2@embarqmail.com>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Doq wrote:
> Several times, people have tended to want to put {naDevvo'} or
> {DaqwIjvo'} or somesuch at the beginning of a sentence about how far
> away something is. According to the interview cited here recently,
> that is already assumed. You'd have to want to change context to
> somewhere besides the location of the speaker to need any locative in
> a sentence with {Hop} or {Sum} as the verb. The default location is
> the location of the speaker.
>
> You don't say {naDevvo' Hop juHwIj.} You just say {Hop juHwIj.}
> {naDev} is assumed, by default, and even if you used it, you wouldn't
> use {-vo'} because you are not talking about motion. You are talking
> about location, and that is handled by {-Daq}, which is assumed for
> {naDev}, so you don't have to use it.
>
> Meanwhile, if you do change the location context, I think the suffix
> is {-Daq} and not {-vo'}.
You're right about using {-Daq} with {Hop}, because that's what Marc
Okrand used there. And it makes sense: "At this location, my home is far."
However, {-vo'} implies more than just motion, as indicated by at least
one example I can think of off the top of my head:
pa'vo' pagh leghlu'
The room has no view. (CK)
So I'm not convinced that {-vo'} is necessarily WRONG the way I used it,
but you're right that {-Daq} is preferable.
> The problem I have with using a colon as you suggest is that the nut
> of your presumption is that distances are pretty much always expressed
> as noun phrases with no verb. We have no colon described in TKD.
> Okrand does use semicolons a lot, for things like {bIr; chuch rur},
> but then he's using two verbs.
You're supposing that my suggestion would be the exclusive method for
talking about distances. That was not my intention. It's just another of
the several ways we've already come up with to express this concept.
As for not presenting a colon: I consider that irrelevant. Okrand
doesn't present ANY punctuation; he just uses it as needed. We see some
really constructions that don't make any sense unless you consider the
punctuation. How about this line from Star Trek III:
HablI' Su' labbeH
Ready to transmit
ghunchu'wI' was, I believe, the first person to figure out how this works:
HablI': Su'! labbeH.
Data transceiving device: stand by! It is ready to transmit.
Or thereabouts. The point is that we can be a lot more flexible than the
formal sentence rules in the books. Especially in speech (as opposed to
writing), language is spontaneous and flexible.
> I think we can just say {Hop juHwIj. wa'SaD qelI'qam}, but I think
> that by doing this, we are basically dodging the fact that we have no
> grammar to connect the distance to the verb {Hop}. I thought that
> topic could do that. If it can't, then I don't think anything else can.
You're right: we could say that, and having been SAID it'd be identical
to {Hop juHwIj: wa'SaD qelI'qam}, which is how I'D interpret it. It's a
sentence fragment. Nothing wrong with sentence fragments.
SuStel
Stardate 8038.0
--
Practice the Klingon language on the tlhIngan Hol MUSH.
http://trimboli.name/klingon/mush.html
