tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 17 13:08:10 1997

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Re: A short story

Ms. or Mr. 26 wrote:

> Even if some of the grammer is wrong, I'm sure you can all get the
> jist of it.

Frankly, no.  I can tell you are telling a guys in a bar joke. I can 
extract the punch line.  That's about it.  I know there is a thrill 
in having communicated in another language.  I will make a deal with 
all you people who don't want to provide translations:  you provide 
the translation at the bottom of the message and I promise I won't 
read it until after I have read your Klingon, if at all.  I'll give 
you an honest assessment of your intelligibility and we won't have to 
go through this elaborate guessing game. 

> tachDaq jawtaHpu' malja'loDpu'. 

You have used two type 7 suffixes on the same verb.  Either the 
chatting was continuous at the time of the story or the chatting was 
complete at the time of the story.  One or the other, not both.  Even 
if the suffixes were not directly contradictory the fact that they 
are both type 7 forbids you to put them on the same verb.  The 
compound noun here is unnecessary and reads like a translation.  Just 
let one noun modify the other in a noun-noun construction, or use 
another noun, like {Suy}.

> QaghDaj chu' ja'qang wa'. 

It is not universally accepted that {ja'} can take the thing told as 
its object.  Assuming it can, this says: "One was willing to tell his 
new error."

> [raQpo'DujDaq tu'lI'pu' ghaH] ja'ta' ghaH, 

He had said "She/he (someone other than the speaker) observe (unknown 
aspect) ? on a passenger ship."

The perfective on {ja'} is definitelyinappropriate, and you have 
contradictory aspects on {tu'}, neither of which is necessarily 
needed.  I don't know what you are saying here to comment further.  I 
am confused as to who the {ghaH} is in the sentence and what s/he 
observed on the ship.

> ['ach be''IH vIleghpu' jIH 
"But *I* will have seen a beautifulwoman"

Note that writing a pronoun when the meaning of the pronoun is clear 
form context (i.e. the verb prefix) amounts to stressing the pronoun. 
Running a verb and noun together as you have with {be''IH} is just as 
weird as doing it with "beautifulwoman," and just as much an 
impediment to easy reading.  We may be able to form compound nouns.  
TKD does not give us licence to create compound verbs or verb-noun or 
noun-verb compounds.  All they do is confuse people, and reveal the 
confusion of the person using them.

Perfective is NOT past tense. Perfective indicates the completion of 
the action of the verb before the time of the sentence.  The time of 
the sentence is determined by context.

> 'ej (raQpo'DujDaq QI'tomer parHa') vIja'ta'Qo' jIH

And *I* have refused to say "I like Khitomer on a passenger 
ship." 

Same unnecessary perfective and I suspect a few other things you 
didn't intend.  Not knowing what you DID intend, I can't help.  In 
Klingon the thing sad is not the object of the verb {jatlh}, so you 
write the thing said, then you use {jatlh} with a no object prefix.
{va jIjatlh}  "I said va."  Same goes for {ja'} and other verbs of 
saying.

> 'ach (QaQpo'DujDaq tItomer parHa') vIja'pu' jIH] 

"But *I* had said "On a Goodskilledship s/he/it likes titomer."

> [vay'Daq nIb be'nalwI' vIja'pu'] > ja'ta' SuvwI'qan. 

The oldwarrior had said "To/at someone/something my wife is identical 
I told him/her/it."

> [('IwHIq bIjus Darling?) vIHechpu', 

"I had intended 'Did you pass the the bloodwine, Darling.'"

This I can understand.  Only problem is that {juS} means pass by, and 
an imperative is needed here.  {'IwHIq HInob} "give me the 
bloodwine."  That's not impolite in Klingon, which doesn't hsave the 
"will you, would you, could you" circumlocution for requests.

It's usual to say {<blah> jIjatlh 'e' vIHech} "I meant to say"  

> 'ach (yInwIj Qu'vatlh DaQaw'taH be'SuQ!) vIja'pu']

"But 'You are destroying damn my life womantoxic' I had said."

To add invective strength to a sentence, don't put one of the swear 
words inside it, but put {jay'} at the end.  {yInwIj DaQaw'taH jay'} 
"You are ****ing destroying my life!"  Again, lose the perfective and 
don't compound nouns with verbs.

> It may look confusing because I changed the quotation marks to
> brackets and the quotes-within-quotes to parenthasis because there 
> are too many apostrophies in there as it is.

People here usually use <angle brackets> or <<double angle brackets>> 
for quotation marks.  These are the usual quote characters in some 
Earth languages.

Ask me for more deatil on anything you don't follow here.

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