tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 04 16:13:33 1998

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

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

RE: KLBC: tobmeH jabbI'ID vIlI'

lab qurgh HoD:
> 
> I recently re-read the Klingon Dictionary and I have a few questions
> that I need answered. They are mainly things which have confused me
> since I started learning Klingon 5 years ago.
> 
> The first problem is -lu'.... I still don't get how this works. I
> understand what it means but I don't know how to look at a sentence
> with -lu' in it and translate it correctly. Can you tell me how?
> 
> Qapla' jupwI'
> 

I can try. The best way to look at <-lu'>, at least while you are still
having trouble with it, is to ignore it and put in "somebody" or
"something" or something similar into the missing subject spot.

A sentence with <-lu'> just means that we don't know (or care) what the
subject is. A few examples:

puq qIp yaS - "The officer hit the child"
puq qIplu' - "Somebody hit the child" OR "The child was hit"

quSDaq ba' HoD - "The captain sat in the chair"
quSDaq ba'lu' - "Somebody sat in the chair" OR "The chair is occupied"


When things get hard is when you get beyond third person singular stuff.
<-lu'> plays tricks with prefixes - it reverses the (phantom) subject
and the (real) object. The phantom subject, which is now the object part
of the prefix, is always third person singular. As a result, the only
prefixes you should ever see on a verb with <-lu'> are:
vI-, wI-, Da-, bo-, 0-, lu-. Anything else is an error.

Here are some examples. The pronouns are added for clarity, but would
normally be absent.

jIH muqIp yaS - "The officer hit me"
jIH vIqIplu' - "Somebody hit me"

tlhIH lIlegh puq - "The child sees you (plural)"
tlhIH boleghlu' - "Somebody sees you (plural)"

paqmey woH Da' - "The corporal picked up the books"
paqmey luwoHlu' - "Somebody picked up the books"


I hope this helped.

pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

Back to archive top level