tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 20 04:46:36 1998

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: KLBC: taghqa' DuSaQ

A note or two on a generally fine post:

On Sun, 18 Jan 1998 02:55:39 -0800 (PST) Qov <[email protected]> 
wrote:

> Sorry, I got distracted.  I do that.  My plants died when I started learning
> Klingon, because I forgot to water them.  I'll try to catch up, now.

I hope the distraction was interesting.
 
> At 11:22 98-01-06 -0800, HovqIj wrote:
> }Hi. I wrote this text today. Unfortunately I won't be able to study much
> }Klingon 
> }the next few weeks, I have to do a lot of other work. :(
> }
> }qaStaHvIS cha' Hogh juHDaq jIHpu'.
> }I've been at home for two weeks.
> 
> Not sure that perfective is correct or incorrect here.  English used
> perfective for this meaning.  French uses present.  Who knows which Klingon
> chooses.

I get frustrated with this, myself. As odd as it may sound, I 
think I'd go for:

DaHjaj qaStaHvIS cha' Hogh juHDaq jIratlhpu'.

Now, the time context is clearer. Trying to use {qaStaHvIS cha' 
Hogh} as a time stamp is confusing because we can't tell if it 
was the past two weeks or the NEXT two weeks or even some OTHER 
two weeks. If we preceed the whole thing with "today", then we 
know that today we have remained at home while two weeks 
happened. Perfective makes sense, establishing "today" as the 
end marker for the duration. The only way I can think of to be 
even more clear is to go to absurd lengths:

wa'maH loSHu' juHDaq jIratlhchoHlI'. DaHjaj pa' jIratlhlI' 'e' 
jImevchoH.

Rarely is this kind of awkward clarity necessary.

> }wejleS *France* Hol nejwI' vIjeSnISmo' Dochmey law' vIghojnIS. 
> }Because I have to take part in a French test (can I use a direct object on 
> }{jeS}?)in 3 days I have to learn a lot of things.
> 
> The answer is "probably you can't use a direct object with {jeS}, but lots
> of people do it anyway because we need such a word so badly."  

I'd use {X-vaD jIjeS}.

> {nejwI'} is
> an interesting choice for "test."  I think I would prefer {qaD} or {tobwI'},
> but I don't really like either.  Perhaps {laHwIj Dajlu'}, and avoid having
> to have a noun at all.

Qov, you've done it again. The whole reason I started to respond 
to this was that {Dajlu'} looked like a mistake because I 
learned my vocabulary through repeated use of words, so I have 
not learned many of these less-commonly used definitions for 
words. Just before making comment, however, I remembered that I 
was dealing with the person who has memorized more vocabulary 
than anyone else I've ever met and there it is: "test 
inconclusively". {Dajlu'} = "is tested inconclusively". Perfect.

> }qaStaHvIS loS Hogh nejwI'vam rurbogh nejwI'mey law' tu'lu'.
> 
> }There will be many tests that resemble this test for four weeks. (I wanted
> to }try 
> }a {-bogh}-sentence... ).
> 
> Or perhaps {lutu'lu'}, just because I'm pedantic.  We've never actually seen
> {lutu'lu'} used here, where the rules say it should be.

I'm pretty sure Okrand said this is like "who/whom" in English. 
{lutu'lu'} is definitely better, though many people make the 
mistake.

On who/whom I made an interesting mistake a month or so back in 
English. I said something like "I know whom has been blamed." In 
English, it is wrong because "whom" is subject of the passive 
"be blamed" and should be "who" and not "whom", but if it were 
in Klingon {nuv pIchlu'pu'bogh vISov}, nuv would have been 
object of {pIchlu'}. I made a bilingual grammatical error.

> Qov     [email protected]
> Beginners' Grammarian                 
> 

charghwI'

Back to archive top level