tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 17 21:48:26 1994

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



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

Re: KKB:SIvqu'wI' WIvwI'



While I am the Beginner's Grammarian, I am confused as to
whether KKB is supposed to be the equivalent to KLBC. I'm also
confused about the post in general. Perhaps someone else
understands it better than I?

According to Joel Anderson:

> Doch ghaH wIvwI' 'e'                

{Doch} could be the noun "thing" or the verb "be rude".  {ghaH}
could be used as either a pronoun or as the verb "to be".
{wIvwI'} could be either "my choice" (if it refers to a being
capable of using language) or "chooser". {'e'} as a pronoun has
no reason to be here at all. Perhaps it was supposed to be a
suffix on the noun {wIvwI''e'}?

Since every word in the sentence is ambiguous, it is a little
bit challenging to translate. If {'e'} was intended to be a
suffix, then my first guess is "The chooser is the thing." The
problem here is that {ghaH} refers to beings capable of
language and {Doch} would not be applied to one capable of
language. {'oH} would be a more appropriate choice.

[repeated so you don't have to scroll up:]
> Doch ghaH wIvwI' 'e'

If {wIvwI'} is "my choice" and {ghaH} means "he is" or "she
is", then {Doch} had better be somebody's name. "My choice is
Thing." Again, {'e'} needs to be a suffix.

If {Doch} is the verb "be rude", then the sentence is indeed
strange. {ghaH wIvwI'} is not an acceptable noun-noun
possessive construction because it would mean "his chooser",
which would better be stated as {wIvwI'Daj}.

In any case, because of the ambiguity of all these words
combined with some sort of error with {'e'}, I can't really
figure out what you were saying.

> *monkey*Hom QaQqu'ta' 'ach pIch ghaj

I think you have reversed the first two words. It would then
mean, "The diminutive monkey had accomplished being very good,
but he blames." The second clause feels a little incomplete.

The reason I believe you have reversed the first two words is
that {QaQ} is intransitive, so it can have no object. When a
noun preceeds such a verb, the verb is usually being used
adjectivally, and {-ta'} is probably inappropriate for such a
verb. If we drop the {-ta'} and accept your word order, it
means something like, "The good diminutive monkey, but he
blamed." Then something is missing from the first half of the
sentence.

Again, I am confused. It would have helped a lot if you had
posted the English WITH your post so that I could know what you
meant enough to more efficiently point out your errors.
Clearly, errors were made, but I don't quite have enough
information here to figure out which ones.

Note, if you meant "little monkey", a more accurate term would
be "monkey" {mach}. The {-Hom} suffix does not really mean
"small" so much as it means "of lesser significance". Size is
not the difference between a Duy and a Duy'a', and {-Hom} is
the opposite of {'a'}, not the opposite of the verb {tIn}.

> 	SIvqu'ta'

"He had accomplished the goal of wondering a lot." I wonder if
he had really set forth toward a goal to wonder and then
accomplished that goal. If not, {-pu'} might be a better
choice, and even then, if you are not indicating that the
process of wondering was complete at the time setting of this
sentence, then there should be no perfective suffix here at all.

Remember that on one of the audio tapes (I forget whether it
was PK or CK), Okrand said something like, "Yesterday, I was
hungry. Today, I am thirsty. Tomorrow, I will be tired." In all
three cases, he used no suffix whatsoever in the Klingon. Tense
is set by the context of the sentence. The suffixes that many
are tempted to use as tense actually indicate the degree of
completion of the verb. That is not the same thing as tense. If
Okrand had added {-pu'} to the verbs in the above examples, the
English would have meant, "Yesterday, I had been hungry. Today
I have been thirsty. Tomorrow, I will have been tired."

Does this help?

> [Sorry.  I was in a goofy mood.  And I was translating
>  H.A.Rey's deathless prose from memory.  

Again, it helps a LOT to get the English WITH the post.

>  KKB=Klingon Kid's Books. George->gk. 'georgos',=farmer]

Don't you think this is a little late to explain your acronym?

charghwI'



Back to archive top level