tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 22 21:15:12 1998
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Re: I-us prefix
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: I-us prefix
- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:19:09 -0400
From: Svante Carl von Erichsen <[email protected]>
>"Svante", "Sven" puqloD, "von Erichsen" tuq jIH.
>"Germany"ngan jIH.
>"IRC"Daq "Harlekin" 'oH pongwIj'e'.
>pong 'oH net ghovlaHqu'mo' naDev 'oH vIlo' je.
Wow! I actually managed to work out what this sentence is supposed to mean!
I can't really say it's ungrammatical, either!
I'd much rather see this as the simpler:
pongvam ghovlu'mo' naDev vIlo'.
Because this name is recognized, I will use it here.
You must lose the emphasis on the ability, but I'm not really sure what the
purpose of that emphasis was in the first place.
> <Harlekin> Have you ever thought of a verb prefix I-us?
> <Harlekin> 'I can see us (on the security monitor)'
> <****> jIHDaq maH leghlaH jIH, if there's danger of ambiguity
> <Harlekin> doesn't leghlaH need some prefix?
> <****> of course, but the prefix for I-us is nothing.
> <Harlekin> read the table on p. 33 carefully - is there a '0' or a
>'-'?
> <****> oops.
>
>I think you got the problem - there is no prefix noted in TKD for I-us,
>and there
>is no Type 1 verb suffix workaround either.
I suspect that the reason there is no "I-us" prefix (or any of the other
prefixes which don't exist) is because they are so seldom needed in Klingon
that they (a) were never developed into prefixes, or (b) were once prefixes,
but were eventually dropped by Klingons through disuse. You really don't
need "I-us" all that often.
But suppose you have your very good example sentence: "I see us (on the
security monitor)." How would you say this?
In my opinion, since you cannot have the object you want with "I" as the
subject, you must choose the "I-no object" prefix, {jI-}. Then, you may use
{-vaD} to indicate the recipient of the action.
maHvaD jIlegh.
I see; the recipient of my seeing is us.
This is not an "official" answer, but it is the answer with the fewest
questions about its correctness. It does mean what you want it to mean, and
it is grammatical. Whether this is how Klingons would say it is another
matter.
Hung jIHDaq maHvaD jIlegh.
I see us on the security monitor.
>In my opinion this seldom used prefix was forgotten in TKD (perhaps due
>to the symmetry of the table).
Forgotten by Klingons, perhaps. Marc Okrand excluded them intentionally.
>Also, I think a construction like 'I see you and I see me' is somewhat
>awkward,
>because I think for one meaning there should be one sentence.
Agreed.
>Anyway, perhaps someone should consult Marc Okrand and publish his
>answer.
You may ask him yourself. He occasionally posts on the newsgroup
startrek.klingon on the server news.startrek.com. We haven't heard from him
recently, but that might change at any time.
SuStel
Stardate 98307.2