tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Feb 14 12:56:00 1998
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Re: KLBC: "to be"
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: "to be"
- Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 15:55:53 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- Priority: NORMAL
As much as everyone has commented on this, I don't think anyone
has completely answered the question.
On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 10:17:28 -0800 (PST) Albert Arendsen
<[email protected]> wrote:
> I ran into a slight grammatical problem ;-)
>
> in Klingon the verb "to be" is often left out in things like "I'm stupid"
> {jIQIp} because "stupid" is also a verb that means "to be stupid"... but
> with some things that just doesn't work.
The thing to recognize here is that English does three different
things with the verb "to be". Klingon has no equivalent verb that
will do those three things. Instead, it takes three different
ways in Klingon to express what we express in English with the
verb "to be".
One of those three things is when in English we say, "X is Y"
where X is a noun and Y is an adjective. "The Ferengi is
stupid." "The betleH is sharp." "The guard is big."
> "I'm a fool" {qoH jIH} will be easily understood when "to be" is left out,
> but when it gets more complicated the whole structure of the sentence can
> become unclear.
This is the "Me Tarzan, you Jane" example. In English, we say,
"X is Y" where X is a pronoun and Y is a noun. "He is big." "It
is Hot." "We are Klingons." The pronoun acts like a verb. It can
even take verb suffixes when it is behaving in this role, like
{taghwI' pabpo' jIHpu'.} "I have been the Beginner's Grammarian."
That doesn't mean that there is no verb. {jIH} is acting like a
verb here. Meanwhile, remember that technically, {jIH} is a
pronoun. That's chuvmey and its grammatical role is a little
slippery. In one sentence, it behaves as a noun. In another
sentence it behaves as a verb. In this kind of sentence, it
behaves as a verb.
It also behaves as a verb in the third kind of "to be" sentence
where in English, we say, "X is Y" where both X and Y are nouns.
"Qov is the Beginner's Grammarian." In Klingon, this is just
like the second case described above, except that there is a
subject which matches the pronoun, giving it a more specific
noun as subject of the sentence. Instead of {taghwI' pabpo'
ghaH}, "She is the Beginner's Grammarian," we say, {taghwI'
pabpo' ghaH Qov'e'.} "Qov is the Beginner's Grammarian." Realize
that {ghaH} and {Qov} are the same person and realize that it
would be wrong to say, {taghwI' pabpo' Qov.} That sentence has
three nouns and no verbs and nouns don't act as verbs the way
that pronouns do. So you absolutely, positively need to say this
as {taghwI' pabpo' ghaH Qov'e'.} That {-'e'} is a required
suffix on the noun in the subject position. We can form theories
about why, but in truth, it is just the way it is. Get used to
it.
> so, my question is, is there a Klingon verb that means "to
> be"?
No. Instead of a single verb meaning "to be", there are three
distinct grammatical constructions, one of which uses a special
class of verbs (sometimes called "stative", sometimes called
"adjectival"). The other two cases use pronouns grammatically as
if they were verbs. In the second case, the pronoun acts as the
verb with the particular pronoun also indicating the person and
number of the subject. In the third case, the pronoun agrees in
person and number with the subject noun while the pronoun acts
as a verb, and the subject noun gets {-'e'} added to it.
Is this clearer?
> -Chakotay
>
charghwI'