tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 07 13:49:52 2011
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Re: mu'tlheghvam yIlughmoH
I guess I'm confused. I thought we were talking about making the FIRST sentence in a Sentence As Object construction a question. That's a problem for me, since that makes it a Question As Object, which is the thing that doesn't make sense to me.
Now, you appear to be talking about making the SECOND sentence in a Sentence As Object construction a question. I see no problem with that, since the question is then not the direct object. You not only can use {-'a'} on the verb of the second sentence, but you should be able to use any other interrogative construction there.
qoH ghaH lojmIt tI'wI' nuv'e' 'e' Har 'Iv?
pegh vIghaj chay' 'e' DaSov?
DujwIj vIparHa' 'e' DaSov, qar'a'?
So, basically, I think you just changed channels on the discussion, unless I missed something.
pItlh.
lojmIt tI'wI' nuv
On Jan 7, 2011, at 4:33 PM, Steven Boozer wrote:
> 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
>
>
>