tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 19 09:16:47 2006

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Re: I should kill you where you stand

McArdle ([email protected]) 

QeS 'utlh <[email protected]> wrote:
   
  >ghItlhpu' mIq'ey, ja':
> [snip]
>>and there also doesn't seem to be a way to express moral obligation. One 
>>could imagine there being a type-2 verbal suffix for this, but none is
>>attested.
>
>{-nIS} "necessary"? Necessity can stem from many things, and for a Klingon, 
>moral obligation would certainly be viewed as a necessity. 
   
  I was avoiding {-nIS} because "I should kill you where you stand" implies "(... but I won't)".  It seemed to me that if a Klingon felt the necessity of killing someone, then he/she would just do it and be done with it.  I wanted something that would indicate that the Klingon in question felt it would be honorable to kill someone, but that the impetus didn't rise to the level of necessity or requirement.
   
  >It's also 
>important to remember that Klingon has no explicit subjunctive mood. My 
>interpretation is that an unmarked verb may represent either indicative or 
>subjunctive meaning, on the basis of canon such as the following from ST5:
>
>Klaa: qIrq vIjeylaHchugh...
>       (If I could defeat Kirk...)
>Vixis: qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS.
>       (You would be the greatest warrior in the galaxy.)
>
>In this exchange, the situation of being the greatest warrior in the galaxy 
>is as yet unrealised, and dependent upon the result of an event which has 
>not yet happened and to which there seems to be some doubt attached - i.e. 
>the defeat of Kirk. The semantics of the subjunctive mood are clearly here, 
>but there is no morphological subjunctive marking; plain indicatives are 
>used, which indicate to me that ordinary Klingon verbs may be semantically 
>either subjunctive or indicative according to context.
   
  This is fine in the context of a conditional, and in fact the same thing happens in at least one variety of English.  If you listen to any American sports broadcast, you'll invariably hear something like "if he fields that cleanly, he turns the double play", where the meaning clearly is "if he had fielded that cleanly, he would have turned a double play."  This is understandable in context, but it is not evidence for a general conclusion that "ordinary English verbs may be semantically either subjunctive or indicative according to context."
   
  In any event, it's not at all clear to me that the "would" in this example exhibits the same mood as the "should" in mine; there are certainly Terran languages where it doesn't.  How do we know that the comparison is relevant to Klingon, which lacks all moods except indicative and imperative?
   
  >>It seems to me that Klingons would express obligation in terms of honor, so 
>>I came up with the following:
>>QamtaHghach DaqlIjDaq qaHoH quvvaD vIneH
>
>"For honour I want to kill you in your site of standing". It sounds a little 
>convoluted, don't you think?
   
  Well, yeah.  One of the reasons I posted was because I wasn't happy with this.
   
  >First off, {neH} probably isn't the verb you want in the main clause, as 
>you're not talking about mere desire, but obligation or necessity. You might 
>want to give some thought to possible uses of {'ut} "be necessary", or as I 
>and others have pointed out, the suffix {-nIS}. 
   
  See above for my reasons for hesitating.
   
  >Also, {QamtaHghach} doesn't 
>sound right here. I would have said {QammeH DaqlIj} "your standing site, 
>place where you stand".
   
  qatlho'.  I like this a lot better.  What a difference a preposition makes.  I was going for "place of standing" whereas Klingon is set up to handle "place for standing".
   
  Would this take the {-Daq} suffix for "in your standing site"?  {QammeH DaqlIjDaq}?
   
  >Finally, if you're talking about the general idea of honour as a Klingon 
>moral code, as opposed to merely one's own personal honour, maybe {batlh} 
>would be preferable to {quv}. I see it as the difference between "Honour 
>demands that I kill you" (this would be {batlh}; maybe you committed a crime 
>like killing a non-combatant during a war) and "MY honour demands that I 
>kill you" ( this would be {quv}; maybe you spread a rumour casting doubt 
>upon the fidelity of my parents).
   
  This is what I get for searching the wrong list for "honor".  I found {quv} in the TKD addendum and it's just translated there as "honor".  Of course I knew {batlh}, as my salutation showed, but I'd only seen it used as a verb/adjective/adverb.
   
  >>[snip]
>
>>hIHoH quvvaD vIneH pa' biQamtaHvIS
>
>Watch your capitalising: {HIHoH}, {bIQamtaHvIS}. Also, using an imperative 
>sentence as the object in a {S 'e' V} construction is probably not possible; 
>it doesn't seem to make any sense.
   
  Nor should it.  I meant {qa-} but somehow copied the wrong prefix (I'm still at the stage of needing to look these up most of the time).  As to the capitalization, mea culpa.
   
  >
>I'd go with lay'tel SIvten on this one; I would drop any reference to "where 
>you stand" and go with the much pithier and more Klingon {DaH qaHoHnIS} "I 
>should kill you now!", maybe with a {jay'} and an epithet or two added to 
>the end for good measure. {{:)
   
  That may work for direct discourse (although I still think there's a significant difference between "I should kill you" and "I must kill you").  How about references to non-present time?  It doesn't seem to me that {DaH} would work for "he killed him where he stood" or "[If you cross me again] I will kill you where you stand".
   
  A thought:  how about {SIbI'}?
   
  qavan
   
  mIq'ey
 	
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