tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 13 10:26:32 1993
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revisions for {vaj lut}, part 1
>From: [email protected]
>Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 02:16:12 -0400 (EDT)
>>>ghochwIjDaq jIpawmeH Duj chu' vIpoQ tugh ghorbejmo' Dujvam
>> ^^^^
>>Domehow "break" seems awfully English to me. It sounds idiomatic. Maybe
>>QapHa'choH would imply better that it would break down/quit working/etc. I
>>dunno.
>Well, how exactly do you suppose {ghor} should be used in Klingon?
>And what if you actually meant that something breaks into pieces,
>physical seperation, rather than simply that it breaks down mechanically.
>Altho, I don't want confusion, so I've used {QIHlu'} for this purpose
>in the second part, when describing the damage received by the enemy
>torpedo blast.r&Mb
Yes, I had taken "ghor" meaning "to break into pieces" (tho I assumed it to
be transitive, using "ghorlu'" in my Jonah translation). I also assumed
you meant "quit working", when you could easily have meant "break apart".
"QIHlu'" is fine for "be damaged", especially if it was damaged by
something (as you say in the second part).
>"Q$
>>`arYKK?KQ2\*?9bt0*A
>ow!s3
>q
>x%E{
Anything important missed in this noise?
>>>pa' vIghoSbogh ghaH wa' verengan moH'e' neH
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>I presume this is "in the room to which I went." This is either the
>>ship-in-which-I-fled problem, or the in-the-ship-which-I-saw problem (i.e.
>>the room is the object of the relative clause and locative in the main
>>clause.) I don't know that there are any good answers for this; you've
>>seen all the proposed ones already. Make of them what you will. However,
>>the locative is really necessary in the main clause, since otherwise it
>>sounds like the Ferengi is a room.
>Whoa! I just knew it! I knew someone would rustle my feathers about this one.
>This is probably the {naDev-jIHtaHbogh-vISovbe'} problem which made for some
>lively discussion on the list a while back. {pa'} is supposed to be "there",
>but some people want to believe that {naDev} and {pa'} are always inherently
>locative-- that you just can't use them any other way. I personally am for
>{naDev jIHtaHbogh vISovbe'}, but I realize there are gargantuanly simpler
>ways to say "I'm lost." (We now have {DaqwIj vISovbe'}). I should have said
>my sentence totally differently, right? Do you think adding a {-Daq} to {pa'}
>would help?
Um, if you add "-Daq" to "pa'", you will definitely confirm that it's
"room", since "pa'" as "there" cannot take a "-Daq" (lending support to the
notion that "pa'" is, in fact, inherently locative). Besides, if you mean
"the place to which I went", why use "pa'"? We have a perfectly good word
for "place": "Daq". If you don't mind a complete restructuring, you could
say "pa' jIpawDI', wa' verangan moH neH vItu'/tu'lu'." (or SaH before the
Ferengi). Otherwise, you're left with the "in the ship which I see"
problem, but you should be using "pa'" as room or else "Daq"; not "pa'" as
"place".
>>>tlhIngan Hol jatlhchu'be'qu' Suyvam nuQ
>> Are you using nuQ as an adjective, this annoying [to people in general]
>> merchant? I'm not sure Krankor would allow this, but I'm not sure you
>> can't do this, as N V is like Vbogh N to me. It did throw me a bit tho.
>Well well well. Krankor wouldn't allow it, eh?? I prefer to take that up
>with 'ol Great Guru of Grammar Himself. Let's see what he says to Okrand's
>obscure example in CK, which contains {Ha'DIbaHmey meQ}, "burnt animals".
>As I've said once before, TKD gives no real guidelines as to which verbs
>can be used as adjectivials. It only says, "A verb expressing a state or
>quality can be used immediately following a noun to modify that noun."
>After all, {nuQ} could be translated "annoy" as well as "be annoying [to]".
Thank you! I've been looking for evidence that N V really was like
Vbogh N for all [intransitive] verbs, but I couldn't find anything to
counter Okrand's phrase that "verbs which describe a state" can be used
this way, but not necessarily others. I agree with what you've done; I was
saying that I wasn't sure Krankor would. I don't believe that Klingons
distinguish between adjectival verbs and non-adjectival verbs here. Your
CK phrase certainly helps strengthen that argument.
OBTW, I realized after I sent off my letter that there's a better verb for
"be suspicious" in the sense "be worthy of suspicion", rather than using
bizarre constructions of "pIH" like I tried: "nub"=be suspect.
>>>yIH ngIm vIHotqangbe'ba'mo' 'oHvaD SIbI' tar vIje' 'ej meHvo' vIpup neH
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>I think adverbials come first, before the 'oHvaD.
>Hang on, where did that idea come from? I once wondered whether an adverbial
>or a syntactic marker comes first, so I scoured TKD to find a few examples
>from which I extracted some simple logic:
>Section 6.1, pg. 60: "Any noun in the sentence indicating something other
>than subject or object comes first, before the object noun." That refers to
>syntactic markers like {'oHvaD}. But then you have section 5.4, pg. 55
>dealing with adeverbials: "These words usually come at the beginning of a
>sentence..." Well, that really doesn't answer the question too well.
>THEN I found on pg.180 stuck way back in the addendum, "The adverbial
>may actually follow the object noun ... when the object noun is topicalized
>by means of the noun suffix {-'e'}." It gives the example:
>{HaqwI''e' DaH yISam} for "Find the SURGEON now!"
>I theorized that any noun with a type 5 suffix goes before the adverb,
>but that's still pure speculation. It's just my theory. (Even tho
>{HaqwI''e' } isn't quite a syntactic marker.)
>Put this on the Okrand questionaire: Which first? Adverbs or SyntacticMarkers?
Good point. I had forgotten about that line in the addendum. I suppose it
is a little iffy. Me, I'd probably still put the adverbial first, even if
it were permitted, simply because to me it makes more sense there, but
then, you're the one writing this.
>Finally, for that wonderfully aggrivating doublepredicatecausitive...
>{DujvaD yuQ vIbavmoH} "I cause the ship to orbit the planet."
>The {-vaD} goes on the thing doing the verb (orbiting) and the object
>of the verb remains the object of the causitive verb. That's the grammar
>logic behind that. Remember when we were talking about these, we were
>comparing them to DPC's in Esperanto and Hebrew, which both do the same thing
>with their DPC's, viz., make the do-er of the action the indirect object.
>The formula is something like
>N1 V N2 --> N2.vaD N1 V.moH
Yeah... trouble is, I don't thing the formula is completely consistent;
sometimes (as was pointed out) it doesn't work right at all, and I wouldn't
be surprised if sometimes it came out reversed. Remember, it wasn't
presented as a catch-all formula that always worked for all cases, but as
an acceptable usage in some cases. Languages are funny things, aren't
they? Full of these little quirks.
>Also, I'll change, {qawHaqvaD nuqDaq Duj lungevlu' vItlhob}
>to {qawHaqvaD vItlhob nuqDaq Duj lungevlu'}
>Verbs of 'speaking' can precede the quote.
Yep. Or follow; they go either way, as you've demonstrated.
>Any more opinions? complaints? et cetera?
>Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos, signing off---
~mark