tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 28 15:18:37 1998
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RE: KLBC: Sormey Hol
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: KLBC: Sormey Hol
- Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 16:12:28 -0700
lab K'ryntes:
>
> > > reH bommey bombogh ghotpu' tu'lu'.
> >
> > This is fine, but it seems like you are a little hung up on
> > what you want the English to be. Here's my suggestion for an
> > alternative: <bomtaHwI'pu' tu'lu'>.
>
> I don't know if I understand this. Is bomtaHwI'pu' like a
> noun and verb in the same word? I know bomwI'pu' is singers
> and bomtaH is singing so does putting them together as
> bomtaHwI'pu' mean singers singing all in one word? If it does,
> then that's pretty cool. I didn't know we could do that. So
> I could do the same thing with any -wI' noun? So if I want to
> say, "There are translators translating", it would be
> mughtaHwI'pu' tu'lu'? In other words, there are translators
> and they're doing their thing. Am I understanding right?
HIja'. bIyajlaw'. Because Klingon has so many verb suffixes, <-wI'> is an
enormously versatile tool - much more versatile than the similar English
suffix <-er>. You can put almost any type 1-8 or rover suffix or combination
of suffixes, before the <-wI'>. If <verb-wI'> is "one who does (verb)", then
<verb-laHwI'> is "one who can do (verb)"; <verb-chu'wI'> is "one who does
(verb) perfectly"; <verb-vIplaw'wI'> is "one who is apparently afraid to do
(verb)"; etc.
ghunchu'wI' (whose name is an example in itself), came up with (I think)
<nenchoHpu'be'wI'pu'> for "adolescents" - literally something like "those
who have not completed the process of becoming mature".
> > > jI'Ijchugh jatlh Sormey 'e' chaq vIQoy.
> >
> > I would say <... chaq 'e' vIQoy>, although we have canon examples of
> > sticking the adverbial after the <'e'>, so yours is fine as well.
>
> I don't understand why chaq would go before 'e'. In fact,
> where to put most adverbs stumps me. TKD says they usually
> come at the beginning of the sentence, then the addendum says
> that isn't necessarily the case. It's no problem in a simple
> sentence but in a more complex one I've been taking my best
> guess.
Looking at the SAO construction (<'e'> or <net>), it is really TWO
sentences. The first is, in your example, <jI'Ijchugh jatlh Sormey>, and the
second is <'e' chaq vIQoy>. In this second sentence, <'e'> is the object. If
you start thinking about SAO sentences like this, it gets a lot easier. You
put the adverbial right after the object, which is apparently allowed, but I
generally put it before the object, hence <... chaq 'e' vIQoy>.
As the TKD addendum explains, adverbials go before the object-verb-subect
stuff - basically at the beginning of the sentence. There are two exceptions
to this, however. The first is that if the object has the <-'e'> suffix,
adverbials may come after the object, but before the verb. This is explained
in the addendum as well.
The second exception is in SAO sentences. If <'e'> (or presumably <net>) is
the object of the verb, adverbials may come after the object, but before the
verb. This is not explained in the addendum, or anywhere else for that
matter, but Okrand has done this at least once - on a Skybox card, I
believe.
Both of these exceptions allow adverbials to be placed after the object, but
I don't see any evidence that they require it, so I just avoid the issue and
put the adverbial before the object.
> Oh and here's a question that's probably really stupid but
> what's canon? Is that what they speak on the TV shows and
> movies?
Canon is all the "official" material we have on the Klignon language, and it
all comes from Marc Okrand. It includes all the publications (books, tapes,
Skybox card captions, etc.) by Okrand, as well as anything he has said in an
interview or even in conversation. As a result, he is pretty careful about
what he says in conversation. Since Okrand has consulted on all the Star
Trek films with spoken Klingon (except the first film, which he used as a
base while creating the language), the "canon" also includes all of the
spoken Klingon from the Star Trek films.
The Klingon we see on TV is treated a bit differently, however. Marc does
not usually consult on the Klingon in the TV series. The Star Trek writers
seem to make it all up, sometimes looking at the dictionary for vocabulary
and sometimes not. They rarely (if ever) look at the grammar section. As a
result, the quality varies greatly from complete gibberish to something a
beginner might come up with. In general, we don't consider the Klingon from
the TV shows to be good "canon" examples of the Klingon language.
Marc, though, likes to make things interesting. He will often take examples
from the TV series and say that they ARE good Klingon, usually calling them
"archaic" or "ritualized" expressions which are still in use. nujoy'taH 'e'
tIvba' Okrand.
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian