tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 07 22:55:02 1994

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Re: nuqneH

Ahhh, Nick. Good to have your use of grammar twist my brain
once again. So, help me as I try to understand what you are
saying.

According to Nick NICHOLAS:
> 
> paSqu' jIjangmeH Qu', 'ach qarI' je jIH. 

"The mission, in order that I answer is very late, but I also
(in addition to doing other things) hail you."? I don't
understand how these pieces fit together. I have finally begun
to understand and agree with ~mark's interpretation of what
{-meH} does to a verb and I am confused about how this fits
together. Might what you intended been also expressed as {nom
jIjang vIneH 'ach jIpaSqu' 'ej DaH qarI' jIH je.} "I want that
I answer you quickly, but I am very late and now, I, too, (in
addition to other people) hail you."? 

> majQa' SuvwI', HolQeD DaghojtaHmo' je SoH.

"Well done, soldier, because you are also (in addition to doing
other things) learning linguistics."  This seems to be missing
a main verb. I can see an exclammatory used on its own, but
I've never seen one with a dependent clause before. Might it be
clearer as:

HolQeD DaghojtaHmo' SoH je majQa' SuvwI' vIjatlh. ?

"Because you, too, (in addition to other people) study
linguistics, I say, "Well done, soldier!"

In both these cases, I see you using {je} following the verb
instead of the subject, and that means to me that the subject
does the verb in addition to other verbs, when I suspect your
meaning is more that the subject, in addition to other subjects
does the verb. It is a subtle difference, but in these
sentences, I think, an important one.

> vaj naDev wej Holtej tu'lu'.

"Thus, around here, Holtej is not yet found." The meaning is
clear, but I've been hearing a lot from Holtej lately and I'm
wondering what you mean by the clearly stated statement.

> taghwI'pu'vaD pabpo' Da "Holtej" ghaHbogh
> D'armond Speers'e'. Georgetown DuSaQ'a'Daq HolQeD Doctor popvaD ghojchoH,
> 'ach HolQeD nuq ghoj ghaH, 'e' vISovbe'.

"For the benefit of beginners, D'armond Speers, who is Holtej,
behaves in the manner of a grammar expert. At Georgetown's
university (more-significant-school) he begins to learn for the
benefit of the reward of the Doctor of Linguistics, but I do
not know what of linguistics he learns." This stretches (-vaD)
a little, placed on {popvaD}, since all this is done for the
benefit of Holtej, not for the benefit of the reward, but other
than that, I follow you clearly.
 
> Melbourne DuSaQ'a'Daq HolQeD Doctor popvaD jIghojchoHpu' je jIH. 

Same comment on {popvaD} and on {je}. I think you wish to
convey that you (in addition to Holtej) begin to learn, rather
than that you begin to learn (in addition to doing other
things), which is what you have said. I think you mean to put
{je} after {jIH}. I also gently suggest that you might prefer
the verb {HaD} for this over {ghoj}.

Note that I'm suggesting these mostly because I think Nick is
extremely good at speaking Klingon and seems to be a little
sloppy on details, which is especially bad when addressing a
beginner. Nick, you've been offline a while and working waaay
hard. I don't want to give you a hard time. I want to just
nudge you a little on using language that is a little confusing.

> Hollo'nger
> (functionalism) vImaSmo', pe'vIl mangach 'e' vIpIH, 'ej mangach 'e' wItIv,
> 'e' vItul.

"Because I prefer language-use-theory (functionalism), I expect
that we will forcefully debate, and I hope that we will enjoy
that we debate." Beginners, ignore the word {Hollo'nger}. He
cheated a little to put a verb in the middle of a compound
noun, and we can forgive him for it because of the volumes of
Klingon text that he puts out, but if you see this as license
to do the same, you will probably abuse the license as you show
off your new, clever trick and you'll write a bunch of "new"
words that nobody is going to understand. In other words, this
is something that Nick does well, and if you try to do it a lot,
you will probably not do it as well, and your stuff will look
bad. It would be better to begin with simpler stuff and
consider adding this kind of word-building technique later,
after you are comfortable with the basics. Don't be tempted by
the cleverness of this grammatical gadget to focus all your
new, learning Klingon skills on how to build compound nouns...

> pab mojtaHghach (grammaticalisation) vIHaD 'e' vIHech, 'ej
> qun ghItlhghom (diachronic corpus) vIlo'. 'ach Hol nuq ghItlhmey vIHaD,
> wej 'e' vIwuq.

"I intend that I study the becoming of grammar
(grammaticalization), and I use the writing-group of history
(diachronic corpus)."

> tlhIngan HolDaq wIlo'taHbogh, wej qaS pab mojtaHghach. 

Ouch. I think I strained a synapse. "In Klingon language, which
we are using, the becoming of grammar (grammaticalization) does
not yet happen." Sorry, Nick. {HolDaq} doesn't cut it. That's
one of those English idioms you give Krankor such a hard time
about. {-Daq} is spacial. Furthermore, if you COULD use
{HolDaq}, then as a locative, the word is no longer suitable as
object of {wIlo'taHbogh}, and since it has no other object, the
{wI-} prefix is strange at best. Perhaps it would be better as:

wej qaS tlhIngan Hol pab mojtaHghach.

We could squeeze in {wIlo'taHbogh} between {Hol} and {pab}, but
I'm not sure that it adds enough to justify the burden it
places on the complexity of the sentence.

> 'ach qasbejpu' 
> choHHommey latlh, Hol'a' wIlo'taHvIS. 

"But while we use the significant-language, another one of
less-significant-changes has definitely happened." I'm
frequently tempted to use {latlh} as an adjectival verb for {be
other}, but it just isn't and it doesn't work when we try to
use it that way. In this sentence, I'd just drop it and trust
that the meaning is carried well without it.

> tugh HolQeD QonoS ghItlhDaq choHmeyvetlh
> vIja' 'e' vItul.

"I hope that soon I will tell these changes in the writing of
Kronos of linguistics." Did you really intend that word order?
I would have expected {Qo'noS} to come before {HolQeD}, to mean
"the linguistics of Kronos" or "Kronos's linguistics". Am I
missing something entirely? Also, again, I'll call you on an
idiomatic use of {-Daq}.

> *paS = late. From Conversational Klingon.
> 
> =What is a good way to express  the meaning 'with something/someone'?
> =I have tried something like 'retlhwIjDaq' for 'with me', but is there 
> =some less circuitous way?  Apologies if this is an old question.
> 
> ngo'qu'mo' yu'meH mu'tlheghvetlh, vaj jangta' latlh 'e' vIpIH; vaj DaH
> vIjangQo', 'ej vIjangQo'taHvIS *mutlhej* latlh law' (hint, hint).

Uhhhh. Ummmm. [long, thoughtful pause]. "Because it is very old
in order that that sentence asks, then I expect that another
one has answered it; so now, I won't answer it, and while I am
not answering it, many others accompany you (hint, hint)."

I'm quite confused about the beginning of that one. My own
approach to this would be to lean on a DIFFERENT controversial
use of a word and say,

Hu' law' jabbI'IDvam Dalabpu'mo'...

"Because you sent this transmission many days ago..."

> Nick Nicholas. Linguistics, University of Melbourne.   [email protected]  
>         [email protected]      [email protected]
>             AND MOVING SOON TO: [email protected]

charghwI', vIHtaHbe'bogh

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