tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 17 01:05:03 1994
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Doch Sar
1. DochwI' Da [Okrand]. I agree with Nick, on the establishment of a Klingon
Academy, if Okrand doesn't step out at least every three months and give us
some new words and clarification on grammatical controversies.
2. I don't think any one of us has a real grasp on the nature of Klingon's
backward syntax.
The fact that Klingons use OVS and tend to stick all other words in front of
that structure does not mean that their brains are backwards.
They do not rhyme the first syllables of their poems.
3. A friend of mine who knows zilch about Klingon, remarked, upon hearing
real spoken Klingon (yes, *real* Klingon, not the crappy Paramountian
dialect) that it was full of a lot of {j} sounds.
This either tells us that {j} is naturally a common phoneme in Klingon, or
else we overuse words like {'ej} and {vaj}. I think the latter is true, since
"and" and "then" are quite frequent in English and other IE languages, and
this probably carries over in our usage.
4. Nick's wish for understanding the nature of the Klingon Sprachegefuehl is
rather unrealistic, considering a definite lack of native speakers.
5. I agree with Nick on the fact that Klingon needs an irrealis, but I don't
think that an irrealis is the only thing it needs.
A Sentence-As-Subject construction is a most reasonable wish. Klingon uses
{'e'} to make a clause into an object. It uses {-mo'} for both verbs and
nouns. {-meH} is the verbal counterpart of {-vaD}. In fact, a clause can do
all the things that a nominal can do in Klingon, EXCEPT be a subject.
An English phrase that Lloyd used in ST3 keeps coming to mind: "Who I am is
not important; [the fact] that I have them is [important]." How to render
this in Klingon?? There must be a way.
6. The {-ghach} controversy is dead in my book. Even before the winds of
debate had stirred up, I had given it up entirely. You will not find one
single use of {-ghach} in any of my text within the past year (well, maybe
one or two). Recasting is the only way to go.
7. More on how badly Klingon needs an irrealis:
In the phrase, {jIjaH vIneH}, what is really being said is "I go. That's what
I want." If you don't want to mean that the action of going is really
happening, you would have to use an irrealis. "I would go. That's what I
want."
That would severely change a lot of Klingon grammar. Oh well. So much for
that wish.
The only thing I can see an irr. practical for is as a conditional marker
sort of thing. "I would be rich if I were free". {jItlhabchugh vaj jImIp}.
Not quite the same.
8. Why has everyone been so quiet lately? I'm not even getting a third of the
mail I normally get from this list. I hope this post will strike up some
talk.
Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos