[86073] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Klingon translation
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ghunchu'wI')
Sat Jun 27 18:43:46 2009
In-Reply-To: <A34E04DA-69C4-487D-8EB6-F63DAAAE5D5B@embarqmail.com>
From: "ghunchu'wI'" <qunchuy@alcaco.net>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:42:05 -0400
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Jun 27, 2009, at 5:50 PM, Doq wrote:
> So far as I can remember, the only reason anyone has even tried to use
> a {'e'} to represent a question has been attempts to use question
> words as relative pronouns.
There's another reason. I think the technical term is "indirect
question".
> If it were possible to use {'e'} to refer
> to a question, it would have to be some kind of construction not aimed
> at using the question word as a relative pronoun.
Here is such a construction: "I know who stole the money."
Another: "I wonder when the rock will fall."
For expressing these in Klingon, I can see a teeny bit of merit in
trying to use a question and {'e'}. It's something that the known
and uncontroversial Klingon grammar just doesn't handle. I'm not
finding any justification for doing it in anything Okrand has
written, but I don't think it would contradict anything either. In
English, the "who stole the money" and "when the rock will fall"
aren't asking a question.
(Note that these really are the English interrogatives and not the
often-identical-looking relative pronouns. For a clear example of
the difference: "I don't remember what he is wearing." The word
used here is "what", not "that".)
-- ghunchu'wI'
