tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 09 13:47:59 1998
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: KLBC Poetry (the child is happy)
According to David Trimboli:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
> Date: Monday, February 09, 1998 2:27 AM
> Subject: Re: KLBC Poetry (the child is happy)
>
>
> >In a message dated 98-02-05 07:45:35 EST, you write:
> >
> ><< > edy jang Qov: >>
> >
> >---peHruS notices the transitive use of {jang}---
> >
> >>From discussions commented on by ghunchu'wI' and charghwI', possibly
> others, I
> >have picked out this lone line.
> >
> >Until now, I have only used {jang} intransitively, giving EdyvaD jang Qov,
> for
> >example.
> >If {jang} took an object, I had assumed that object to be the question
> being
> >answered.
> >
> >Comments on this transitive use of {jang}. Who likes it?
>
> We just don't know. {jatlh} definitely does not take the person being
> spoken to as its object, although the prefix might indicate 1st or 2nd
> person objects. {ja'} *seems* to take the person being spoken to as its
> object, though it is still possible that this is also prefix shortening (but
> since this sort of thing happens with great frequency in TKD itself, I tend
> to resist this idea). It is also possible, though without any evidence,
> that {ja'} could take the report as its object (the two types of objects
> might be mutually exclusive).
We also have {ja'chuq} as a listing in the word list and it has
been stated that it was not among the special words like
{lo'laH} which have become whole words independent of their
root-affix origins. Clearly, even in third person, the object
is a person. I'm relatively certain that in PK's jokes {ja'} is
used with the person addressed as the object.
> We know Okrand translated all of the Klingon
> lines in Star Trek III, though we haven't seen all of those translated
> lines. I'm very curious as to how he translated Kruge's line, "Report
> status!" It might very well be {Dotlh yIja'} or even {Dotlh ja'}. However,
> this is just speculation.
>
> As for {jang}, it *seems* to be used like {jatlh} in its only appearances:
> {jang 'avwI'} (Power Klingon, a couple of times in the jokes). But because
> of the nature of the sentence, we don't *know* what's happening here. This
> sentence might very well translate more correctly as "The guard answers
> him." We just don't know.
That null prefix has stood in the way of clarifying things like
this in more than one setting.
> At this point, the safest course of action is to treat it exactly like
> {jatlh} when using the indirect object prefix trick. {mujang} is certainly
> "he answers me," whatever the actual object of the verb is. This avoidance
> allows us to deal with 1st and 2nd person objects easily, but any further
> attempts to use this will result in questionable sentences. Break it into
> two sentences: {ghel Edy, jang Qov}.
>
> But suppose the object of {jang} is the question, as you suggest. We don't
> have a noun for "question." So what Klingon word is a valid object for
> {jang}?
chomonmoH.
> SuStel
> Stardate 98109.1
charghwI'