tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 07 18:34:32 2003
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Re: emphasis on locations
From: "Quvar valer" <[email protected]>
> Lately, my captain told me "Put this Targ on our ship!"
> There where two Targs, I didn't know which one to take, so I asked "Put
this Targ on our ship?"
> The captain was angry, answered "NO, on your *grandmother's* ship! - duh"
;-)
> He obviously misunderstood me
>
> In Klingon the command might have been this:
> - DujmajDaq targhvam yIlan.
>
> The question I asked ist just the question-form of the comand:
> - DujmajDaq targhvam vIlan'a'?
>
> To avoid misunderstanding, I could use the #5 topic Marker {-'e'} for
emphasis, right?
> - DujmajDaq targhvam'e' vIlan'a'?
> - "Put *this* Targ on our ship?"
>
> Maybe the topic is on the verb (must I {lan} it, or can I throw it?), I
would do that with the Rover {-qu'}:
> - DujmajDaq targhvam vIlanqu''a'?
> - "really *put* this Targ on our ship?"
>
> Now, going through all possibilities of misunderstandings, we come to the
place.
> "Put this Targ on *our ship*??" (maybe it's our space station?)
> - Dujmaj'e'Daq targhvam vIlan'a'? EEEEEEEEEEEEEE
> RROR
> If I would do this, then I'd be using two suffixes of one type. Clearly,
this means that locations formed like this
> cannot use the topic marker {-'e'}.
>
> Ideas? ;-)
I recommend you do it exactly the same way you're doing it in every English
example you gave above: through verbal emphasis, not grammatical emphasis.
*DujmajDaq* targhvam yIlan!
English gets by just fine without even having a topic or emphasis marker.
Klingon can clearly survive without being able to use it on words that have
other type 5 noun suffixes.
SuStel
Stardate 3019.9