tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 10 16:18:25 1998
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Re: QoghIj qaD
On Wed, 8 Jul 1998 15:38:07 -0700 (PDT) David Trimboli
<[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Alan Anderson <[email protected]>
>
>
> >Qermaq jang SuStel:
> >>>nuq vIje' vIneH?
> >>
> >>Ick: question as object.
> >
> >In this case, it *is* a question, so it doesn't sound wrong to me.
> >The question word substitutes for the answer, exactly the way questions
> >are supposed to work in Klingon.
>
> In other words, you *like* this one, so you're not going to argue against
> it.
>
> I believe Okrand recently told us (or rather, told one of us at a
> convention) that questions cannot be objects. In {nuq vIje' vIneH} you have
> a question as an object. Whether you like it or not, it is a question as
> object sentence.
>
> Perhaps it IS correct, but I haven't seen any objective reason to believe
> that.
I agree completely. There are several ways it could make sense
to me:
nuq vIje'bogh vIneH? "What, which I will buy, do I want?
je'meH nuq vIneH? "What in-order-to-buy thing do I want?"
vIje'meH nuq vIneH? "In order that I buy it, what do I want?"
Still, I see why ghunchu'wI' likes this as it was. The question
is not the object of the verb. This is not ([Question] 'e'
Statement). It is a big question. The action of {neH} is
involved in the question.
This is interesting. I suspect it is just a mind trick, all the
same. The two verbs are more intimately engaged with each other
than most SAO constructions. This is why I've argued that {neH}
is stuck in an evolution towards becoming a suffix, hampered by
the perpetual need for a prefix.
As SAO, {nuq vIje' vIneH} is definitely wrong:
"What do I buy? I want that."
See? It is gibberish.
We want to say, "What do I want to buy?" If that breaks down to
a question, the question is really, "What do I want?" and some
kind of reference to the action of buying. You want the thing in
question. Klingon doesn't have an infinitive "to buy". As close
as it gets is {-meH}. {je'meH} can be worked in a couple ways,
either referring to the verb {neH} or the DIpqoq {nuq}. I
suspect it can make sense either way here. SAO doesn't.
The only other way I can think of to say this is with a relative
clause. It yields a strange literal translation, but I suspect
it works. "What, which I buy, do I want?"
I can reach even farther with: {vay' vIneHmo', nuq vIje'?}
I think I'd scrap all this convoluted attachment to a
near-literal translation of an English idiom and instead say,
{vay' vIje' vIneH. wej jIwuq.}
Then again, this is such a vague, wittering, indecisive concept,
it may very well just not translate well into Klingon at all. If
Klingon wants to buy something, then he obviously knows what he
wants to buy. Only a human would ask, "What do I want to buy?" A
Klingon caught asking such a question would likely get
swiftly cleaned from the gene pool.
> SuStel
> Stardate 98515.7
charghwI'