[890] in tlhIngan-Hol
Klingon in academia
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun May 16 10:27:00 1993
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Sun, 16 May 1993 21:01:08 +1000 (EST)
Before I go into this: I realise that, with my law'/puS, I stepped into a
current minefield in the language. I could grumble something to the effect
that, if a language has such minefields scattered in it, I'd wait for the
mines to be removed before attempting to use it... but that would not be
productive. My reading of TKD, too, suggests that NPs are intended, but
I think it worth considering how Okrand would have described the situation
if sentential complements were legal. My guess is, for an informal presentation
,
sentential complements could still be described in the TKD way, possessives
and all, though it would sound strange. In speaking of 'things', Okrand is
describing the semantics of the grammatical objects involved, not at all their
Klingon morphology. In any case, I think the task of hanging 'objects/subjects'
off noun phrases (thus: how do you say "a Klingon killing a Terran is illegal)
is far more important, and if solved, will solve many of the outstanding
problems in Klingon.
Now then: I plunged into Klingon because a linguistics prof of mine had set
an assignment for a class I'm not taking, involving writing a syntax and
semantics for a language given some phrases out of a phrasebook; the language
of course was tlhIngan Hol. A week later, I'm in her Discource Analysis
class, translating the conversation we've been transcribing into Klingon
while a student is giving a presentation. Shortly after I've finished, she,
who has been sitting next to me, confiscates TKD for the rest of the hour :)
Without the details of transcription, here's the original conversation, and
how I rendered it:
M: It's a matter of... kind of...
S: See you later.
N: See you Shu Chen.
M: ... figuring out the market... niche, isn't it.
N: m.
M: and then um... uh... designing something appropriately and...
N: I think teachers would be the main people.
M: Yeah.
N: And they'd just take it, you know, come along. It'd be a sort of add-on
qualification to the XX [mumbled].
M: m.
N: Help them in their work.
M: What, a certificate in English grammar, or something like that?
N: Hm. Yeah. That would be... And what I've discovered, taking these workshops
is... I went in the first year with a very much an anti-prescriptivist
position.
M: Yes.
N: But I discovered I was actually being... [dishonest]
I: Oh, you talk.
N: We're just talking and then I've got to give a postmortem.
M: We're just talking, you can join us if you want to.
I: I want to!
M: [laughs].
---
M: potlhtaHlaw'...
S: Qapla'!
N: Qapla', "Shuchen"!
M: ... lo'wI buv vajghach, qar'a'?
N: HIja'.
M: tugh... chIch Doch chenghach je...
N: potlh chaH ghojmoHwI' 'e' vIHar.
M: jIQochbe'.
N: 'oH luHaDbej, 'e' Dayaj'a? lughoSbej. XX latlh ghojtevHey 'oHbej.
vumghachchaj boQbej.
M: tera'ngan pab ghojtev 'oHlaw'a'?
N: HIja'. 'oHbej... HaD ghomghachvamDaq vIghojmoHtaHvIS, Dochvelth vItu':
wa'DIch DISDaq Holra'gholna' Dup vIngaq.
M: vIyaj.
N: 'ach jIyuDHa'be'qu' 'e' vItu'...
I: yIjatlhqa'!
N: majatlh neH. tugh soQcho'QIjghach vIjatlhchu'.
M: majatlh neH. DaneHchugh, matay' soH maH je.
I: vIneHbej!
M: jIHagh.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick Nicholas, Melbourne Uni, Australia. nsn@{munagin.ee|mundil.cs}.mu.oz.au
"Despite millions of dollars of research, death continues to be this nation's
number one killer" --- Henry Gibson, Kentucky Fried Movie.
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