tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 02 17:15:15 1998
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RE: KLBC
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: KLBC
- Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 17:11:37 -0700
lab Tony:
>
> naDev juHwIj vIchenmoH
> I build my house here.
>
> Is this an event in progress or one to take place
> sometime in the future.
Klingon doesn't have tense, so you just don't know. I could be "I built
my house here" or "I am building my house here" or "I will build my
house here." It all depends on the time context of the sentence. If you
say <wa'Hu' jIghung>, you translate it as "Yesterday I was hungry". If
you say <wa'leS jIDoy'>, you translate it as "Tomorrow I will be tired."
If you don't have a time context in the sentence, you might have one
from the sentences around it. If not, the author probably decided it was
not important.
What Klingon DOES have is what we call "aspect". This often gets
confused with tense because in English, tense and aspect are all mixed
up together. Reread TKD 4.2.7 for more information on aspect. Just be
careful no to treat the completed aspect suffixes <-pu'> and <-ta'> like
English past tense.
> juHwIj vIchen
> My house I build it
<chen> is what the house does. <chenmoH> is what you do. You need to say
<juHwIj vIchenmoH>.
> pq'Daq juHvetlh yIchenHa
> Destroy that house over there.
> Destroy the house over there. (?)
> or
> pa'Daq juHvetlh yIQaw
<naDev> and <pa'> are special - they never get <-Daq>. Don't forget the
stops at the end of words.
<pa' juHvetlh yIQaw'> is much smoother than <... yIchenHa'moH>, but both
are acceptable.
> How does -moH change the meaning of these statements?
They don't make sense without it. You just can't <chen> something. It's
kind of like saying "I fall a book" when what you really mean is "I
knock a book over".
> tera'ngan Hol vIQubtaH
>
> I am trying to say "I still think like a terran"
"I am thinking the Terran language" is what you said. What you want to
say is that while you are thinking, you behave like a terran. See if you
can improve on it with that suggestion.
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian