tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 01 10:43:45 1996
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Re: KLBC: Thinking and compounding
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>Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 11:40:58 -0700
>From: [email protected] (HoD trI'Qal)
>At 10:17 PM 9/8/96 -0700, Denny Shortliffe wrote:
>>[snip]
>tlhIngan Hol does not use it enough, because it DOES NOT HAVE IT.
>What???
>That's right. We have a structure where we can compare two nouns together,
>but there is NO VERB "TO BE" in Klingon. My proof? Page 67, the first
>sentence under 6.3:
> There is no verb corresponding to English "to be" in Klingon.
>If I remember my history correctly, yes, it WAS because Marc Okrand did not
>want "to be" being used all over the place, which is one reason why a number
>of people on the list (myself included!) will jump all over you if you
>nominalize a verb, and then use it in that pronoun-thing described in 6.3.
>Why not just use the verb as a VERB? It gives more flavour to your
>sentences, and is usually shorter/more precise.
In fact, when hit with "to be or not to be," the one thing he was sure was
that he was NOT going to give in and make a Klingon "to be" verb. He was
adamant about that, and came up with "yIn pagh yInbe'", which Christopher
Plummer nixed because it didn't sound Klingon enough for his taste, and was
changed to taH pagh taHbe'.
English *DOES* use "to be" a lot; it has gobs of meaning in English (ask a
linguist about E-Prime someday). It's a good practice to think about it
now and then and consider all the concepts it hides. (The same is true to
a lesser extent about "do" and "have" in English, IMO). Klingon doesn't
have "to be." It is FAR from being the only language to lack it.
~mark
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