tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 10 11:41:53 2002
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to' nech, 004: {ghorghvaD 'oH?}
>>>K: ghorghvaD 'oH?
>>>Gloss: When is it for?
Agnieszka wrote:
>><ghorgh> is not a noun and cannot take noun suffixes.
Sean Burke:
>Some things besides prototypical nouns can act like nouns. Consider
>{nuqDaq}. {nuq} isn't a prototypical noun, but it takes a noun suffix
>{Daq} just fine.
Are you sure this is the locative suffix {-Daq}? I read it as the noun
{Daq} "site, place, location", which shows up in other compound words: e.g.
{QongDaq} "bed". {nuq} BTW also shows up as an element in two other
words: {nuqjatlh} "What did you say? Huh?" (exclamation), {nuqneH} "What
do you want? (greeting).
Be that as it may, Agnieszka is right: {ghorgh} "when?" is a question word
and doesn't take noun suffixes. I'm all in favor of identifying
"undocumented features" in Klingon by a careful examination of canon to
supplement Okrand's sketch (as he calls it) of the grammar in TKD, but this
isn't one of them.
Back to your translation: "When is it for?" is an idiom and can't be
translated literally. What you're really asking is "When do you want it?"
{ghorgh DaneH?}, "When do you need to have it?" {ghorgh DaghajnIS?}, etc.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons