tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jun 29 06:20:08 1994
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jaw
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: jaw
- Date: Wed, 29 Jun 1994 18:17:02 -0400
>From: [email protected] (Jennifer James)
>Date: Mon, 27 Jun 94 17:02:00 -0640
> -=> Quoting Klingon Language List to Jennifer James
>on Stardate 06-07-94 12:03 <=-
>NuqneH, loDni' tlhoghmo'. [Cherokee]ngan ghaH loDnalwij je.
Interesting! "brother by marriage". This is a tough one, though: can we
use these suffixes as prepositional phrases, to modify nouns? What we've
seen in the canon doesn't support this usage, I think. The suffixes seem
only to be used to fill other "places" in the sentence structure (i.e. not
Subject or Object). Then again, there aren't many sentence fragments in
the canon. Still, even in complete sentences I can't recall any use like
this offhand. I suppose you could make it a sentence and say "tlhoghmo'
loDnI'wI' SoH". Is it necessary, though? Grammarian isn't sure, but is
leaning against allowing suffixed nouns to modify other nouns: what do
others think?
The second sentence has two famous gotchas though. First, there's the
"-wIj" suffix. It's a tough one to remember, but it's important to use
"-wI'" on nouns that can use language (see section 3.3.4), unless you want
to be insulting (which I presume not to be the case here---I hope). So it
should be "loDnalwI'". The other thing is that when a pronoun is being
used as a copula, to indicate equality between its "subject" and "object"
(as here), the "subject" is falgged with the "-'e'" suffix (see section
6.3). Why? Because. It's a weird one.
>pong'eghmeH "David" lo'. tugh [Cherokee] Hol wIghojchoH. nuqDaq
>[Cherokee] Hol HablI'mey vItu'laH 'e' DaSov'a'?
DaHjaj [cherokee] "pIqaD"qoq vItu'; lo'laH De'wI'mey. [cherokee] Hol
DaghItlhmeH De'wI' Dalo' DaneHchugh, HIja'. chaq qaboQlaH.
>pIQochbe' jIH loDnalwij je. 'ach loDnalwij pIQochbe' law' jIH
>qaQochbe puS.
Excellent use of "pI-" in the first sentence; some people have trouble
using this and thinking of the person as the "object" of Qochbe', but it
works quite well. OK, say problem with loDnalwI'. The law'/puS
construction is another problem, though. This one is another longstanding
open question here. TKD says only that law'/puS can be used with *nous*,
not with *verbs* (or clauses, actually) as you have here. There are a
variety of workarounds, often involving "-DI'" and anaphor... but they
don't seem to apply here. Hmm.. I'll have to think on this one.
Oh, and if you could use a verb, it would be "DuQochbe'" the first time
it's mentioned in the second sentence.
All in all, you're really doing well with this, especially for someone who
just got on the list and may not have seen the way we've been doing things
for a while. Keep it up! I'm especially impressed at how much you're
avoiding English.
>Qapla'
>Jennifer James
~mark