tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 08 08:15:22 1994

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: nuqneH



Hu'tegh! nuq ja' William H. Martin jay'?

=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.

As I said last Thursday at the _Death by Chocolate_ restaurant: "Let's get
ready to *Rumball*!"

=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."? 

My task for answering (= my answering task) is late, but I too salute you.

I've taken to considering -meH NOUN as a separate unit from the clause, rather
than letting the -meH clause describe the verb. It's odd, but I think it's
allowed by the fine print. ja'chuqmeH rojHom, in TKD, has a meaning by itself:
"a truce for conferring". I don't think it's that bad to use jIjangmeH Qu'
to mean "a task done in order to answer".

=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."? 

In a word: yes :)

=> 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. 

Well, yeah, but it does still make sense... Hm. Probably too risky, though.
Natural languages do this all the time ("How long are you going to be? Because
there's a movie on" actually means "I ask this because there's a movie on.");
but Klingon isn't that well defined that I should get away with this, is it.

=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.

Ah, but read TKD 5.3. very carefully. Klingon cannot actually express this
distinction, because "je" is *only* allowed to follow the verb; Okrand
explicitly states the construct is ambiguous.

=> 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.

Hehehe. Actually, "So there are three linguists here". To get out of the
ambiguity of "wej", I usually move it: "vaj naDev Holtej'e' wej tu'lu'".

=> 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.

I usually actually state this as "Doctor pop SuqmeH"
 
={je} after {jIH}. I also gently suggest that you might prefer
=the verb {HaD} for this over {ghoj}.

Correct; I'd forgotten the verb. (I remembered it later on, though).

=> 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, 

*smile* No he didn't. TKD appendix: lo' is also a noun. I'm as adamant as
the next Klingonists on the no VERB-NOUN compound rule... Contrary to what
you say, I should not be allowed to violate this rule any more than anyone
else...

=> 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)."

"historical group of manuscripts". Does qun ghItlhghom convey that to you?

"But I haven't decided yet what language's manuscripts I will study" (it looks
like Mediaeval Greek, though.)

=> 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.

I wouldn't think so; the phrase would become ambiguous. Curiously, Okrand
has come up with such an ambiguous phrase in his DS9 trading card, but I'm
going to choose not to follow him on that precedent.

What I actually intended is for tlhIngan Hol to be a locative argument of
qaS, not of wIlo': (tlhIngan Hol wIlo'bogh)Daq, wej qaS... Since we've
decided a locative cannot be head of a relative clause, the form is not
in fact ambiguous (it cannot mean "The Klingon language in which we use",
but only "In the Klingon language we use"); the statistics I've done on
relative clause usage here actually bear this out, and I'd say it's one of
the most important evolutions in Klingon to date. It's messy, but it's not
nonsensical.

I'm not sure that you're right about the locative being inappropriate. It's
not much more of a temporal than a locative, after all. But your proposal
does remove all the unneccesary ambiguity.

=> '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.

I've become so accustomed to this Markan usage that I don't bat an eyelid
any more over it; it's become as entrenched as NOUN Hoch...

=> tugh HolQeD QonoS ghItlhDaq choHmeyvetlh vIja' 'e' vItul.
="I hope that soon I will tell these changes in the writing of
=Kronos of linguistics." 

Not Qo'noS, but QonoS: journal. "I hope that soon I will report these changes
in a linguistics journal manuscript (article)" (The two words are stressed
differently: QO'noS vs. QoNOS.)

=> =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)."

"Because this sentence-for-asking (question) is very old, I expect that
someone else has answered it; so I won't answer it now, and while I'm
not answering it, many others accompany me".

=>             AND MOVING SOON TO: [email protected]
=charghwI', vIHtaHbe'bogh

qaStaHvIS poH nI', jIvIHtaHbe' je jIH, De'wI'vetlh chu'Ha'lu'mo'.

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



Back to archive top level