tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 30 08:27:57 1995

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Re: Spring Issue of HolQeD




On Sat, 29 Apr 1995 [email protected] wrote:

> 1. jIH po' law SoH po' puS.  My judgement is that this should be jIpo' 
> law' bIpo' puS.  Stative verbs can only be used as adjectives when they 
> modify *nouns* (TKD 4.4) not to modify *pronouns*.  

It's an interesting question, but you do have to admit that the meaning of 
the sentence is quite plain and unabiguous.  Even if the rules do not 
explicitly state that pronouns can be used this way, this sentence also does 
not seem to overtly violate any grammatical rules either.

I don't think using {jIpo' law' bIpo' puS} would be the solution.  It 
deviates from the formula presented in Sec. 6.6.  The comparisons 
made in the examples are {la' jaq} & {yaS jaq} and not {jaq la'} & {jaq yaS}.

If you are uncomfortable with using pronouns in law'/puS constructions, 
then the simple solution would be to just stick with using nouns.  E.g.
laHwIj po' law' laHlIj po' puS.

> 2. Question: tlhobtaHghach.  

> The truth of the matter is,that as things stand now, 
> there is no word for question in Klingon.  

Perhaps you could say {tlhobta'ghach} (the completed process of having asked 
something) or {mu'tlhegh tlhoblu'bogh}.

> I prefer "qay' Dochvetlh."  That is the problem.  Since in "to be or not 
> to be", we really don't mean *question* in the sense of "what time is it?"

Ah, you mean a conundrum, mystery or enigma.  I don't thing {qay'} 
refers to a "problem" in the sense of a question.  I think it means 
something along the lines of "to be vexatious, to be troublesome".  
I wouldn't necessarily use {qay' Dochvetlh} since not all puzzling questions 
are problems or hassles, they can be viewed as an interesting challenge; 
and certainly any situation can be a problem, not all problems are questions.

Perhaps you could use {ghu' tobbe'lu'pu'bogh} or {wanI' yajlu'chu'be'bogh}.

> 3. junneSghach.  I hope none of you are seriously considering using this.  

I though it was a rather bizarre solution to the use of {-ghach}.

> 4. Ace; jenwI'.  According to TKD page 64, -wI' is defined as "one who is" 
> when used with stative verbs.  

I could not find the passage which you cite.

> Thus jenwI' would be defined as "one who is 
> high, a high person" not a high card.  

If you are suggesting that {jenwI'} could only be used for persons, I 
simply disagree, since we have words like:  joqwI', QumwI', De'wI', 
So'wI', etc.

> Anyway in many card games the ace is *not* the high card.  
> Better is simply wa' since ace is simply Number One.

I agree that {jenwI'} may not be the best word for "ace".  Since these 
card game terms are not canon, but are just for fun, I'm not too 
concerned about it.  

> Glen Proechel

yoDtargh



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