tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue May 19 06:52:47 2009
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RE: Question problem
Doq wrote:
>> I wanted to ask, "Why are you starting slowly?"
>>
>> Suddenly, I realized that I had one grammatical slot to put two words
>> in. I don't think we've been given any license to use two adverbials
>> with a single verb, since adverbials don't have conjunctions like
>> nouns and verbs do. Meanwhile, the question word for "why" is
>> grammatically treated as an adverbial, so I'm stuck.
FYI: We only have one example of the adverbial {QIt} "slowly" in canon:
cha'maHvagh vatlhvI' Hong. QIt yIghoS!
Slow to one quarter impulse power. ST5
["Twenty-five percent impulse power. Proceed slowly!")
David Trimboli:
>Is it? TKD 6.4 simply says the question words /nuqDaq/, /ghorgh/,
>/qatlh/, and /chay'/ occur "at the beginning of the sentence." It says
>nothing about them taking an "adverbial slot."
>
>In fact, we don't know anything about "adverbial slots." TKD 5.4 simply
>says that most adverbials occur "at the beginning of a sentence." We've
>never SEEN two adverbials in a single sentence (not counting /neH/,
>which works differently), but that doesn't automatically deny us the
>possibility.
>
>Basic Klingon sentence structure seems to be very amorphous. I picture
>it this way:
>
> <header> <object> <verb> <subject>
>
>where <header> is a nebulous blob containing all the bits that aren't
>the object, the verb, or the subject. Timestamps tend to come first,
>adverbials tend to come before nouns, question words tend to come before
>everything else. Of those tendencies, I think only the one about
>timestamps is explicit (TKD p. 179); the others probably come about due
>to our native language instincts. Strictly speaking, according to the
>book, timestamps tend to come first, adverbials tend to come last, and
>everything else appears between the two.
>
>This general structure has, of course, many exceptions. This is not an
>all-inclusive formula.
Doq is quite correct that we've never seen two true adverbials used together, but as even Doq recognizes, {qatlh} is not an "adverbial" but a "question word" (which IIRC is how Okrand always refers to it). What can be confusing for English speakers is that adverbs in English can also correspond to Klingon verb suffixes ({-qu'}, {-chu'}, {-bej}, etc.) or even nouns: i.e. "place stamps" like "here", "there", "everywhere" or "time stamps" like "today", "tomorrow", "yesterday", etc.
These "adverbial nouns" (to coin a phrase) can appear in the "header" slot along with a true adverbial:
DaHjaj nom Soppu'
Today they ate quickly. TKD
or with a question word:
qatlh pa' ghoS
What's she doing? ST6
["Why is she [the ship] going there?"]
qatlh Dat DI tu'lu', tlhIngan?
Why is there rubble everywhere, Klingon? CK
So I see no reason why a question word can't be used with an adverbial:
qatlh nom Soppu'
Why did they eat (so) quickly?
> qatlh QIt bItaghlI'?
I agree with Sustel: This is exactly how I would say it.
QIt bItaghlI'.
You are starting slowly.
vs.
qatlh QIt bItaghlI'?
Why are you starting slowly?
You could even throw an "adverbial noun" (time stamp) into the mix:
DaHjaj QIt bItaghlI'.
You're starting slowly today.
vs.
qatlh DaHjaj QIt bItaghlI'?
DaHjaj qatlh QIt bItaghlI'?
Why are you starting slowly today?
--
Voragh
Canon Master of the Klingons