tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 02 15:54:17 2004

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Re: ghelmeH mu'tlhegh'e' Sayu'

Alan Anderson ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

> > Does the sentence <<nuq vIjatlh 'e' DaneH>> form a question?

ja' SuStel:
> First of all, {neH} doesn't use {'e'}.  Drop that.

qar.

> Next, we have the old problem of Question as Object.  It has been reported
> that Marc Okrand says you can't use questions as objects.

qar...'ach chut naQ QIjbejbe'.

This "pronouncement" by Marc Okrand was in the context of forming statements
like "I know what you ate" by using question words instead of relative
clauses.  I'm not convinced it applies to forming questions using the
standard practice of putting a question word in place of a noun.

> This more or less
> ended a long-standing debate in the Klingon-speaking community.  {nuq
> vIjatlh} is a question, and so can't be the object of {neH}.  Therefore,
> this sentence is invalid.

It's not invalid because of anything written in TKD or any logical extension
of it. Only because it happens to be a Question as Object is there any
question. Yes, "happens to be" -- it isn't the kind of QAO that the debate
was about. It's the kind that *does* make sense without any stretching of
the rules.

> *{nuq vIjatlh DaneH} seems simple enough, but it technically violates what
> we know about Klingon.  Until Okrand says otherwise, avoid it.

My opinion is that the technical violation is unproven.  I freely admit that
my opinion is based on my assuming what Marc Okrand *really* meant rather
than accepting as universally applicable what he is reported to have said in
a certain context.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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