There’s a new Star Trek Roleplaying game coming out, and they just released the PDF of the core rulebook. One part of the book contains a personal log of Klingon High Councilor, with the following phrase:
{tugh qoH nachDaj je chev’lu’ta’}
I assume the author was attempting to translate “A fool and his head are soon parted.” However, this translation seems incorrect to me. I think the verb requires a {lu-} prefix because you have a plural object, and the {-ta’} suffix is incorrect because the action has not yet been completed. So I would instead use {luchevlu’} as the verb in this sentence.
So my questions are two-fold
(1) Am I correct about the grammar here, and does my correction make sense?
(2) Is there perhaps a more elegant way of translating this proverb?
Strictly correct grammar does require a verb with a third person plural object to take the lu- prefix, but Marc Okrand has clarified –and demonstrated in his own work–that it’s commonly left off, so chevlu’ta’ there is colloquial rather than completely incorrect.
The perfective suffix can often be used on a future–or in this case hypothetical–action. It shows that we’re talking about the completing of the separation, not the act of separation itself. Consider the canon sentence, <ghorgh tujchoHpu’ bIQ?> When will the water be hot? The speaker is asking about the completion of the change in temperature, not the process itself.
Your suggestion <tugh qoH nachDaj je luchevlu’> isn’t wrong. It’s simply more pedantic in its prefix and concentrate on the action iteself rather than its completion. Your suggestion shows that you thought about the rules and are trying to improve Klingon you find. maj.
I’m not sure what you find inelegant about the formulation tugh qoH nachDaj je chevlu’ta’. It’s very straightforward. Would you prefer tugh qoH HoHlu’?
Thanks for the response! It was most helpful. I’m not sure from the context what exactly the author intended, but impression I got from the it was that it was intended as a general warning, not as a specific threat or an expectation that someone will die. Rather, it reads more as a general warning to the recipients (in this case the high council) to take care not to act like fools and thus potentially lose their heads. Or per haps it was being used just a like general, timeless proverb. So for those reasons, the perfective aspect just felt wrong to me. I could see it making sense if the meaning were more again to “The fool and his head will soon have been parted.”