tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 26 07:36:43 1995
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Re: Adverbial Concepts
According to R.B Franklin:
>
>
> On Tue, 25 Apr 1995, Alan Anderson wrote:
>
> > peHruS:
> > > "Passionately the ocuple exchanged love stories."
> > > bang lutmey ja' loD be' je 'ej nongqu' chaH
...
> > nongqu'taHvIS loD be' je muSHa'ghach buSbogh lutmey'e' jatlhchuq
First of all, I don't tend to like the tendency to replace
{bang} with {muSHa'ghach} just because TKD doesn't have a noun
for "love" as an abstract entity. Think about the concept in
the original sentence. A "love story" is also a "lover's
story". I think {bang} works fine here and suspect that a
Klingon would refer to a lover's story, rather than try to
create a clone of the English abstract term for love. What is
love without lovers? It is like the difference between going to
the grocery store and going to the grocer. The same concept can
be approached different ways by different people, let alone by
different languages.
> Sec. 4.2.1. indicates that when a verb uses the {-chuq} suffix, it can't
> take an object. Unfortunately, we don't have any examples of what to do
> if a verb with {-chuq} has an indirect object. When you use a verb with
> {-chuq} there is always a plural subject. Each of the subjects is the
> object of the other subject; and you use a verb prefix which would
> indicate "no object". But what happens when there is an indirect object?
> I would tend to think that if you say "They tell each other stories", then
> "stories" would be the indirect object and you would have to use {-vaD}, e.g.
> lutmeyvaD jatlhchuq loD be' je.
Here, I see a purpose implied in the discussion. {bang lutmey
buSmeH ja'chuq loD be' je.} In general, when I see a sentence
to translate, I take the sentence back to its concept and then
think about the tools in the Klingon language. The language
likes purpose, action, goals, time stamps, comparative timing
between actions, degrees of certainty. Often these concepts are
elements of a sentence which are not expressed very well in
English, which focuses much more on nominalizing everything and
evaluating some sort of judgemental statement about the state
of this thing. -- [Okay, I'll disengage from this rant.]
Here, the man and woman discuss. The purpose of their
discussion is to focus on love stories. The main action is
these two people telling each other. The purpose of their
telling each other is to cause them to focus their attention on
stories involving lovers.
> There are two ways to view the word {ja'chuq}:
>
> 1. The word is simply a combination of {ja'} (tell, report) + {-chuq}
> (one another) and {ja'chuq} simply means "to tell each other". Sec. 4.2.1.
> says that when you use {-chuq}, you use a prefix which indicates the verb
> has no object, i.e. the object is "one another". If such is the case,
> then {ja'chuq} can't take an object.
I strongly support this interpretation.
> 2. Since {ja'chuq} appears in the TKD as a separate entry, it is a
> separate verb unto itself and despite its appearance, it is not a verb
> with the {-chuq} suffix attached. If such is the case, then there is no
> reason that this verb couldn't take an object. Thus, you could say:
> puqchaj luja'chuq ghunchu'wI' be'nalDaj je.
> (If {ja'chuq} was {ja'} + {-chuq}, then it could never have {lu-} as a
> prefix.)
> If {ja'chuq} is a separate verb, then you could even say {ja'chuqchuq
> chaH} (They discuss each other.)
I strongly discourage this interpretation. I think {ja'chuq} is
a separate entry simply because its meaning is not altogether
obvious without a separate entry. The {-chuq} is just a suffix.
The general rule is that in Klingon, verbs roots are always
monosyllabic. Nouns and chuvmey may become polysyllabic, but
not verbs. I know of no exceptions.
> > -- ghunchu'wI'
>
> yoDtargh
charghwI'
--
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