tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 20 05:11:29 2006
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Re: I should kill you where you stand
ghItlhpu' mIq'ey, ja':
>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."
I understand it to mean the future tense, not the past, but never mind. {{;)
>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."
No, but that's because English *has* subjunctive forms. "Would", "could" and
"should" are all subjunctive modals, which are in contrast to their
indicative forms "will", "can" and "shall". There are also ways (no longer
common ways, but ways nonetheless) of forming subjunctive verbs from
indicative ones. (Compare the now almost obsolete distinction between "If I
was..." and "If I were..."). Klingon has no morphological structure that
compares to this, and going on the available evidence, which I admit is
scanty, I think it is reasonable to merely use Klingon indicative forms in
order to represent subjunctive mood.
Unfortunately, the problem with a limited canon base is that we sometimes
have to draw rather sweeping conclusions based on fairly sparse evidence.
I'm not saying my way's how a Klingon would necessarily do it, but at least
canon supports it, and I've yet to see any better way postulated (although
I'm certainly open to all suggestions). Without being able to generalise, we
can't produce any original Klingon. We got the verb {qaj} "soar" in HolQeD
10:4. How do we know it's not irregular? How do we know it doesn't form its
perfective aspect with the suffix {-rIn} or something? In short, we don't.
So we have to generalise sometimes. I think this is one of those times, as
Dr Okrand has never mentioned the possibility of a Klingon subjunctive in
canon, nor do I expect he ever will.
>How do we know that the comparison is relevant to Klingon, which
>lacks all moods except indicative and imperative?
This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. I believe that in Klingon,
there is no grammatically important distinction to be drawn between
subjunctivity and indicativity.
>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}?
I don't see why not. We have hardly any canon that uses a {-meH}-modified
noun used in a sentence, but I don't know of any reason why {QammeH
DaqlIjDaq} is any less acceptable than the {meQtaHbogh qachDaq} found in
TKW.
>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".
Of course. Tense in Klingon isn't marked on the verb, so time must be either
implied in discourse, or marked in other ways. These other ways usually
involve adverbs, and it's only natural that using a present-time adverb like
{DaH} limits the scope of the sentence to the, er... present time. In
addition, the additional example sentences you give lack the complication of
the moral obligation entirely; they're mere statements of fact ("I *will*
kill you...").
I find the English phrase "he killed him where he stood" to be a little
artificial, but {pa' QamtaHvIS HoH} "he killed him while he stood there"
seems a reasonable recast. As for the second, I think your suggestion of
{SIbI'} is as good as any: {choquvHa'qa'chugh SIbI' qaHoH}.
QeS 'utlh
tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pabpo' / Grammarian of the Klingon Language Institute
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
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