tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 18 02:26:27 1994
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Re: Doch Sar
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Doch Sar
- Date: Mon, 18 Apr 94 14:23:01 EDT
On Apr 17, 1:04pm, [email protected] wrote:
> Subject: 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.
Great idea, except that at this time we lack any authority to make any
demands whatsoever of Okrand. He apparently works for a living more than most
of us (high pressure, low free time). There are people working on both
fronts, to get more feedback from Okrand and to get more authority on the
language, but the process is slow and pushing too hard before the
infrastructure is in place will probably not be productive.
> 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.
Except Nick, of course.
> 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.
Another possibility is my own belief that the {j} phoneme is the one
least well fitted to the language. It sticks out because it does not sound
Klingon. People percieve by discontinuities and {j} is discontinuous with the
other sounds of Klingon. It is a softened {ch} and the softening of it makes
it sound quite different from the other phonemes.
Doubt me? Count to ten for your non-Klingon friend and ask him which
number does not sound like it fits in with the others. He'll pick {wej}. I
can't say {wej} without making a face.
> 4. Nick's wish for understanding the nature of the Klingon Sprachegefuehl
> is rather unrealistic, considering a definite lack of native speakers.
I think before it gets any stamp of authenticity, there needs to be at
least two people who talk that way so they can use the language to SHARE a
thought. We could each make up our own impenetrable idioms, but unless the
group agrees on meanings (like "If you shine my nose, I will GIVE you YOUR
nose.") then very little interesting is happening.
> 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.
I once figured out that the problem with the sentence-as-subject
construction is that since the pronoun {'e'} is the device used, it divides
the two sentences when it represents the object of the second sentence. For
it to represent the subject of the sentence, it would follow the second verb
and NOTHING would divide the two sentences, so there would be no way to
determine if a noun between the two verbs were the subject of the first verb
or the object of the second. It becomes very logistically confusing. While
sentence-as-subject would be a valuable tool, the lack of it has not stopped
me from saying many things in Klingon.
> 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.
The solution is a special grammatical construction called "two
sentences".
> 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.
Agreed, though I'm open to future Okrand decisions on this.
> 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."
How about:
jIjaH 'e' vInajqu'lI' neH
I can think of several variations with their own connotations:
jIjaH 'e' vInajlaH neH
jIjaH 'e' vInajqang
jIjaH 'e' vInajtaH
> That would severely change a lot of Klingon grammar. Oh well. So much for
> that wish.
Klingons don't wish. They just do.
> 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.
Again, to make this irrealis, I'd say:
jItlhabchugh vaj jImIp 'e' vInajlI' neH
'ach jItlhabbe'
> 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.
jatlhnISchugh ghaH Sov SuvwI'na'
> Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
charghwI'