tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 24 19:25:37 1996

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Re: tlhIngan Hol chu' jIH


On Thu, 15 Aug 1996 14:30:57 -0700 [email protected] wrote:
> 
qaSDI' 96-08-15 12:38:21 EDT, jatlh ~mark:
> 
> > I *think* there's some evidence of using direct-object prefixes for
> >  indirect objects in other cases, at least with certain verbs.  It might be
> >  what's going on with verbs of speaking, though that's unclear (ask
> >  SuStel).  You're right that "jIHvaD yIghItlhneS" is certainly more clear
> >  and correct; there may be some support for "?HIghItlhneS" as a
> >  colloquialism.
> 
> In Power Klingon, we hear {'avwI'vaD jatlh qama' jIghung}.  Now, if we to
> suppose a colloquialism in use here, then I imagine I could say ~{'avwI jatlh
> qama' jIghung}.  But I just see this as either "The prisoner speaks guard 'I
> am hungry'" or "The prisoner says guard 'I am hungry.'"  Neither one makes
> much sense to me, although I would be able to figure it out.

I'm going to give up on writing for HolQeD. I simply work better 
in the mailing list environment. You have just made a very good 
point, and torpedoed an article I had submitted, all in one fell 
swoop.

My transcription of Power Klingon is incomplete and I had not 
gotten as far as the joke near the end, so when I swept through 
my records of canon, I could find no examples of quotation other 
than TKD, which only uses {ja'} for speech, and always uses the 
person addressed as the object of {ja'}.

It was like a revellation that quotations were not the object of 
the verbs of speech. While quotation was placed in the section 
with Sentence As Object, the quotation was not, in fact, a form 
of Sentence As Object. Instead, it was two sentences next to 
each other. One is the quotation and the other is the sentence 
describing the act of speech. They can appear in either order, 
and as those examples gave, the object was only the person 
addressed.

>From this, I supposed that {ja'} and {ra'} would be natural 
verbs of speech, but {jatlh} didn't seem to work all that well 
because it would not take the person addressed as the object. I 
was somewhat bothered by the appendix definition as "say", since 
the only example of its use was as "speak" with {tlhIngan Hol} 
as its object. This way, {tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'} would always 
mean, "Do you speak Klingon?" and it would never mean, "Did you 
say, 'Klingon?'"

But thanks to the examples from PK, it seems that {tlhIngan Hol 
Dajatlh'a'?} indeed COULD mean "Did you say, 'Klingon?'" It 
also presents the confusing situation where the quote WOULD be 
the direct object of {jatlh}, raising as a grammatical problem 
as to how to justify the potential of placing a verb's object 
AFTER its subject. This is what you do if the direct quote is 
the object of the verb.

The TKD examples don't have that problem because the person 
addressed is the direct object. When we use {jatlh} as "says" or 
"said", suddenly, the quotation logically becomes the object of 
{jatlh}, yet the grammar says we can place it after the subject 
of {jatlh}. taQqu' ghu'vam! Just exactly WHAT is going ON here? 
This is the weirdest thing since {law'/puS} or {'IwlIj jachjaj!}

> I really think the exact glosses are very important for three words: {jatlh},
> {ja'}, and {tlhob}.  Two of these Okrand felt he needed to clarify in the
> Addendum.  I wouldn't say ~{qajatlh} for "I speak to you," because it really
> says "I speak you" (as if "you" referred to a language).  

Or, because of the Addendum's definition, it could mean "I say, 
'you'." See? I think I liked {jatlh} better when it just meant 
"speak". Anyway, Krankor and others were proponants of using 
{qajatlh} as another form of greeting years before my arrival 
here. I always thought it was strange, but it had a lot of 
momentum. I did like the idea of walking up to someone and 
saying, "Hey! I'm talking to YOU!" in Klingon, which is 
apparently a common urge, hence {qajatlh}, but I agree that it 
sounds strange.

> But if one sticks
> exactly to these glosses, one should get the right result.  Some examples:
> 
> {jIDoy' Saja'} "I tell you (pl) I am tired."  NOT ~{jIDoy' Sajatlh}.  To use
> {jatlh}, you'd have to say {tlhIHvaD jIjatlh jIDoy'} or {jIDoy' tlhIHvaD
> jIjatlh}.

So, when {jatlh} is used as "say", it can take no object? That 
would resolve my conflict over using the quotation as the 
object. I definitely see direct quotation as the glomming 
together of two otherwise grammatically independent sentences.
 
> {Dotlhmaj vIja'} "I report our status."  For this gloss, {ja'} seems to take
> an object: that which is being reported.  Perhaps you can stick quoted
> material on this as well.  I don't know.

Are you saying this is an Okrandian example? All the canon 
examples of {ja'} I've seen use an object with {ja'}, and that 
object is the person addressed. Is this one I've missed?

Still, if you are making it up, it makes sense, since the object 
is not a direct quotation... 
 
> {wej mu' vIjatlhlI'} "I am saying three words."  NOT ~{wej mu' vIja'lI'}
> (although this one has a believable translation).

Looks okay to me. Different from anything canon, but it jives.
 
> {ghorgh mamej nutlhob} or {nutlhob ghorgh mamej} "They ask us 'When do we
> leave?'", NOT ~{ghorgh mamej lutlhob}.  I *might* believe {maHvaD ghorgh
> mamej lutlhob}, but you'd have to bring out a very convincing argument.

jIQochbe'chu'! I really won't like it if the direct quotation 
winds up being the object of the verb of speech. While we've 
been doing this for a long time, upon reviewing TKD recently, I 
came to realize that this may be the most common error we've 
been making in the Klingon speaking community..

I completely agree with you.
 
> toH!  jIghungchoH jIQubtaHvIS.  DaH jISop.

SojlIj DatIvjaj!
 
> SuStel
> Stardate 96623.9

charghwI'

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