tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 22 11:45:25 1998

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Re: KLBC Poetry (the child is happy)

edy writes:

>>}>Now that the child has killed the bug, the child is happy.
>>}DaH Quch ghew Heghpu'bogh puq'e'
>>
>>This was an example of "that" meaning "because" in English. 
>> You have to watch me because I like to put words in 
>> examples that force you to think about meaning. You've 
>> actually written:
>>"Now the bug is happy the child which has died." 
>> Try it again. 
>
>May be this one works: DaH ghew HoHpu'mo' Quch puq 
>or DaH Quch puq ghew HoHpu'mo'.
>(I didn't find any canon example be sure which one is correct,
>but I prefer the first).

Both are grammatically correct according to the rules in TKD, but 
charghwI' will love you for preferring the {-mo'} clause preceding 
the main clause.  I would have written:

ghew HoHpu'mo' puq DaH Quch 
(Sentence A)

Literally, "Because the child has killed the bug, now he is happy."
More smoothly for English, because we usually put our "because" 
clauses after the main clause: "Now the child is happy because he 
has killed the bug."  I am calling this sentence "sentence A" because 
I need to refer back to it later in the post.

Note that the adverb doesn't have to go at the 
beginning of the whole sentence, just at the beginning of the clause.

>I would like to speculate this sentence a bit more before 
>become glad with it. Surely I'll say lot of "bullshits" here
>but I ask you a bit of your patience. Please, don't throw
>stone at me.

HelIj botlhDaq naghmey vIlanbe'. :)

>Well, if I want to say: 
>(The child which has killed the bug is happy)
>
>Actually we have 2 sentences: 
>
>1. The child has killed the bug (ghew HoHpu' puq)
>2. The child is happy (Quch puq)

Very good.  This is an excellent way to look at the problem.

>I could say:
>
>ghew HoHpu' puq vaj Quch puq
>(The child has killed the bug then she is happy)

The English would be clearer with "thus" instead of "then."  The 
Klingon is correct.

>It's quite the same thing. The child can be happy, but I'm not :)

We haven't seen {vaj} used as a conjunction in canon, unless it's 
together with {-chugh}.  I accept it, but I don't write it that way 
as often as I use {-mo'} for the same purpose.

>Okay .. back to the sentence again:
>If I say: (ghew HoHpu'bogh puq'e' Quch), one could 
>say: "You cannot put the Topic 'e' in the first noun .."
>Yes, I know it, but the topic 'e' here refers the previous 
>sentence "ghew HoHpu'bogh" and not the "puq Quch". 

Edy, I think you are confusing nouns with verbs.  {Quch} is a verb. 
{puq} is a noun.

> so, it could mean: "is happy the child who has killed the bug" 

"is happy the child who has killed the bug"  is NOT a grammatical 
English sentence, but it perfectly represents the error in your 
Klingon sentence.  You have the subject and verb out of order.

I believe I see what you are thinking, though. Let me explain.  I'm 
not quite sure where you got lost, so I'm going to start at the 
beginning.

Start, as you did, with the simple sentence:
{ghew HoHpu' puq } - "the child has killed the bug" 

Using the type nine verb suffix {-bogh}, make the sentence into a 
clause.  This is a noun clause, and can be treated as a noun anywhere 
in a sentence, as long as the result isn't too complicated to be 
parsed by your brain. 
{ghew HoHpu'bogh puq} - "the child who has 
killed the bug" OR "the bug which the child has killed" (ambiguous) 

Resolve the ambiguity with the {-'e'} topic marker on the subject of 
the relative clause:
{ghew HoHpu'bogh puq'e'} - "the child who has killed the bug"

Now use the relative clause as the subject of a verb, remembering 
that the subject comes AFTER the verb in Klingon:
{Quch ghew HoHpu'bogh puq'e'} - "The child who has killed the bug is 
happy."

Yes, the word {Quch} is closer to the word {ghew} than the word 
{puq}, but that's ok.  It is perfectly clear that it is the child 
that is happy.  The whole relative clause is the subject of the verb 
{Quch}.

>Quch puq'e' HoHpu'bogh ghew ? The child whom the bug 
>has killed is happy

Right.

>but again, it could mean
>"The child is happy whom the bug has killed"

This isn't a valid sentence in English and I can't think of a valid 
sentence that means anything different from the first one.

The sentence says that 1. a child has killed a bug and 2. that 
child is happy.  Pretty much any sentence in any language that 
expresses exactly that is a valid translation.  

> What can I do?

I think that all that was an exercise in trying to get the verb 
{Quch} in the right place to say who is happy.  Does sentence A solve 
your dilemna, or do you have more questions about it.

> If I use the Adverb, it could become easier:
> Now, the child which has killed the bug is happy
>
>The 2 sentences: 

>1. The child has killed the bug (ghew HoHpu' puq)
>2. Now, the child is happy (DaH Quch puq)
>
>At my point of view, "the child is happy **now**" and not
>"the child has killed the bug **now**"

Right.  That's exactly why I moved the adverb in sentence A.

>Thus my shoot is:
>
>ghew HoHpu'bogh puq'e' DaH Quch puq
>(The child which has killed the fly now the child is happy)
>
>ghew HoHpu'bogh puq'e' DaH Quch ghaH
>(The child which has killed the fly now she is happy)
>
>ghew HoHpu'bogh puq'e' DaH Quch
>(Now, the child which has killed the fly, is happy)

Both your English and Klingon have the same error in each sentence: 
the relative clause is just sitting there with no function in the 
sentence.  I know it makes it extra hard for both of us because we 
have to communicate through a language barrier even when we are using 
English.  Sometimes I don't know if you have a small error in Klingon 
and mangled English, or a big misunderstanding in Klingon.  I 
sometimes translate mistakes in Klingon into English to illustrate 
what is wrong with them, but that doesn't work when the person 
doesn't see what is wrong with the English!  I wish I could translate 
this into Portuguese because I think it would have the same problem 
and then you would be able to see it.  Either that or Portuguese does 
something with relative clauses that English and Klingon simply 
don't.

By the way, all three of these sentences would work nicely if you had 
used {-mo'} instead of {-bogh}.

>or
>
>Adjectives, ambiguities .. all together
>The worst thing is that I think that the solution 
>shall be too near and I can't see it.
>
>Writing these lines I saw an interesting thing. If we
>drop the "," from the sentence: 
>(Now the child which has killed the fly is happy)
>an alien could see: 
>Now the fly is happy the child which has killed

This last is gibberish in English, so I can't understand your point.

I don't think I've resolved this for you yet, but I'm not sure 
what to say.  Follow up to this post, cutting it right down to just 
those things you don't understand, and try to explain.  If you aren't 
sure if you understood something I wrote, tell me.  I think I 
explained some things in complicated ways here.

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