tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 07 13:34:38 2011
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RE: mu'tlheghvam yIlughmoH
lojmIt tI'wI' nuv:
> It's probably a good time to stop using {'e'} with questions, okay? It
> really doesn't work. Trust me on this. You don't really mean, "We don't
You mean with question *words*, like {chay'}, {ghorgh}, etc. You can use {'e'} with the interrogative suffix {-'a'}:
The correct way to say "Do you think that...?" is {... 'e'
DaQub'a'?} ({'e'} is "that", referring to something that
precedes it in the sentence or in the discussion; {DaQub'a'}
is "do you think it?"). [st.klingon 12/1996]
> know that question yet." You mean "We don't know THE ANSWER TO that
> question yet." The pronoun {'e'} does not represent anything but the
> previous sentence -- the WHOLE previous sentence. It doesn't represent
> part of the previous sentence or the answer to the previous sentence.
> It represents the entire previous sentence, as stated.
>
> You could just drop the {'e'} in all of these and you'd be fine.
>
> chay' yInlIj van? wej jISov.
> batlh Hegh'a'? wej maSov.
This works perfectly fine. But it's nice that there's more than one way to phrase things. It's a matter of style.
> In addition to avoiding the Question As Object problem, this simpler
> grammar also avoids the ambiguity of the word {wej}. Since the prefix
> doesn't involve a direct object, you can't mistakenly think that it
> means "three" instead of "not yet".
>
> You are using the pronoun {'e'} as if it were your only tool and you
> are treating every problem as if it were a nail.
>
> pItlh.
> lojmIt tI'wI' nuv