tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 25 08:49:26 2003

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Re: Grammar Question

Lieven (Quvar valer) ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol ghojwI']

Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>> I don't think this actually changes what I was saying; I still think
>> it's cleaner to use {tIn ghIchwIj} than {ghIch tIn vIghaj}.

batlh bIjatlh! Good objection.

SuStel:
>It's not conclusive proof, of course, but it does show that there are at
>least a couple of instances where one may "have" or "lack" a body part in
>Klingon.  I would have no grammatical objection to anyone who wanted to say
>/Quch Hab ghaj SoSlI'/.

The most important thing in a sentence is the verb, isn't it? It describes the "action", and Klingon uses much more verbs than we do in 
Federation standard (that's why we sometimes have problems to translate a noun)

I'll take Seqram's example:
  {tIn ghIchwIj} 
  "my nose is big."
--> it IS BIG, my nose is BIG.
i.e. the sentence tells us that the nose is big.

{ghIch tIn vIghaj}.
  "I have a big nose."
--> I have a nose, which is big.
or I DO HAVE the big nose (which you told me to get at the store)
i.e. the sentence tells us that someone possesses a big nose.

Now with the curse:

{Hab SoSlI' Quch}
 -->  "the forehead of your mother IS FLAT"
 i.e. you just said that the mother's forehead IS in a condition which it should not be: FLAT, and this is the worst curse of all.
Here it's 100% clear that {SoSlI' Quch} is "your mother's forehead". We're talking about her forehead.

{Quch Hab ghaj SoSlI'}
--> "your mother HAS a smooth forehead."
i.e. maybe she just cut it off a human skull, or she bought it. In this sentence it's not so important that it's smooth, it talks about what 
the mother is POSSESSING.
Here it's not clear whose {Quch Hab} "your mother" is possessing. We're talking about the mother.

Thats just how I see it. It's a slight but interesting difference.
--

and of course we should keep in mind that {ghaj} is (certainly) not used exactly as we do in english.

Recently, I started to learn turkish. And you know what? There is no verb for "to be" -- we're used to that already -- but there is also 
no verb for "have". So try to translate "I'm on the ship, but I have no money"  :-)

I gotta go back to work,
  Quvar.

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