tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 23 10:06:09 1995
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which -- reprise
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: which -- reprise
- Date: Fri, 23 Jun 95 13:06:07 EDT
I apologize in advance for my repetition, but I've seen a lot
of repetition for other suggestions on how to handle "which"
without really receiving any feedback on my own way of dealing
with it.
"Which targ should I buy?"
jIHvaD targhwIj yIwIv.
"Which targ did you get?"
targhlIj chu' HI'ang.
"Which prisoner should I kill?"
qama' vIHoHmeH wa' qama' yIwIv.
"Which prisoners should I kill?"
qama'pu' puS vIHoHmeH yIwIv.
"Which side are you on?"
'Iv qech DaQoch?
or
jaghlIj ghaH 'Iv'e'?
My point in all this is that you can convey the meaning of
every sentence I've encountered so far using "which" as
interogative adjective by recasting without violating any rules
or making up any new useage for words.
You just have to let go of the idea that a question in one
language is always expressed as a question in another language.
In Klingon, if "which" could also be expressed as "whose"
(meaning changing "which boy" to "whose son" or "which ship" to
"whose ship"), then we can use the noun-noun construction with
{'Iv}, which acts like a noun anyway. The relationship between
it and the noun in question is one of ownership, so it works
fine.
For "which" questions that cannot be recast as "whose"
questions, the question can become a command to select
something or show something or otherwise DO something to
indicate "which" thing satisfies the criterion specified in the
English question.
I think that by these means, we can handle all needs to express
the interrogative "which" quite legally according to present
rules and vocabulary until Okrand gives us a new rule or a new
word. Meanwhile, he might also choose to simply recognize that
"which" is not needed, since these recastings are effective.
Even if he DOES come up with a new way to express this, the
recastings will still be grammatically correct and symantically
effective, so you won't have to go back and rewrite your stuff
if you follow this suggestion.
Do others disagree? So far, I have not heard agreement or
disagreement. I just feel ignored, as the discussion continues
on nuq targh, targh nuq, targhmey nuq, targhmey nuq targh,
targh nuqDIch and other illegal constructions continues.
charghwI'
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