tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 24 22:10:50 1994

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Re: jISuptaH



Guido, thanks for changing the header. I think you judged quite
well both to offer the original to the beginners and to carry
the continued discussion away from their focussed attention.

According to Guido#1:
> 
> >> DaHjaj pov SupmoHwI''a'Daq jISuptaH
> >> rut jISupDI' DungDaq jIDIng
> >> wa'logh jISaqDI' SupmoHwI''a'Daq paw' qIvwIj'e'
> 
> >This might be a little clearer as:
> 
> >... paw'chuq qIvDu'wIj
> 
> Well, that's not what I meant. What happened was, I landed on my knees. But I
> wasn't sure how to say this. And of course, it is NOT {qIvwIjDaq jISaq}. The
> English idiom implies in Klingon that my knees are laying somewhere and I
> come down on them. So change that last line to: {wa'logh jISaqDI'
> SupmoHwI''a' ghor paw' qIvwIj'e'}.

You are right. This is not casually easy to say without
stepping away from English and reexamining the thought from a
Klingon language toolkit. As yet another stab at it, I'd offer:

wa'logh SupmoHwI''a' ghorDaq SaqDI' qIvDu'wIj rIQchoH DubwIj.

That seems to get to the point of what you are describing in
English as clearly as I can express it without a lot of time
polishing it.

> >Topicallizing "knees" is okay, but not grammatically
> >needed...
> 
> Need you even mention this? I'm sure we all understand that {-'e'} has
> meaning when used outside of mandatory usage. I never topicalize without good
> reason, and here I simply wanted to stress that it was my knees that I
> happened to land on, rather than my feet, which is what I'd intended to land
> on.

Well, I wonder if the idea that you landed on your KNEES was
really important to the overall thrust of your story. While I
agree that topicalization is appropriate sometimes in places
where it is not specifically required by grammatical
construction, I think you are getting a little loose with it.
In this post, in particular, it was certainly the most repeated
suffix. You used it in almost every sentence. I'm going to
rewrite this paragraph to display the effect in English.

Well, I wonder if the IDEA that you landed on your KNEES was
really important to the overall THRUST of your story. While I
agree that TOPICALIZATION is appropriate sometimes in places
where it is not specifically required by grammatical
construction, I think you are getting a little loose with it.
In this post, in particular, it was certainly the most repeated
SUFFIX. You used it in almost every SENTENCE. I'm going to
rewrite this PARAGRAPH to display the effect in English.

See what I mean? I suspect that in Klingon, except where
required by grammar, the {-'e'} suffix should probably appear in
most contexts once per paragraph or less. Emphasis loses its
effect if repeated too often. Not only is this density of {-'e'}
stylistically different from everything in canon and different
from the writings of everyone else on this list, but it is even
different from YOUR writings until very recently. You seem to
be on a {-'e'} kick. I'm not sure that's the best thing to hold
up as an example for newcomers.

...
> >My own suspicion is that Klingon verbs are much like English
> >verbs in that some are only transitive, some are only
> >intransitive and others can be either...

> I cannot believe that any verbs could go either way in Klingon. English is
> exceptional among language for allowing many of its verbs to go either way.
> You can look all you want; you won't readily find this phenomenon elsewhere
> in the world. I dare anyone to prove me wrong.

What I WANT is for Okrand to list transitivity for all his
verbs or to explain why it is okay not to; to explain the rules
for treatment of transitivity. Krankor has suggested that
perhaps TKD doesn't mention transitivity in the same way that
it does not always distinguish between direct and indirect
objects. While I have problems with this idea, my respect for
Krankor forces me to at least LISTEN to it and try to see if I
can make it fit into my understanding of the language.

> ... I find {-choH} and {-moH}
> used together makes for very redundant constructions, because in the
> description of {-moH} in TKD, the meaning of {-choH} is already strongly
> implied: "Adding this suffix to a verb indicates that the subject is causing
> a /change/ of condition or causing a /new/ condition to come into existence."
> TKD 4.2.4 [emphasis added]. I keep it at, "in order that I cause it to be
> hurtless", i.e., "to prevent my pain (for now and the rest of tonight)". 

Good point. Your emphasis added impresses me that I had not
gleaned that particular, useful meaning from that segment of
TKD. Thanks for clarifying.

> I'd hoped my grammar wasn't too complicated.

I suspect that many beginners will not have the patience to dig
through that much simple quantity, since they must look up
every word every time, and most of them have not assembled any
single alphabetized wordlist, so they get thrown by words from
the appendix. When they hit mildly complex grammar, they may
get confused and intimidated and not read the rest of the post.

Others will be more diligent and make it through the whole post
with some parts not quite understood. Still, their skills will
be improved for their efforts and some of the words will become
familiar enough to begin building a vocabulary. In these ways,
you help them, and for that, I thank you.

I wish to similarly provide little stories DURING MY COPIOUS
FREE TIME to offer them examples of clean grammar and
vocabulary and enough context to help them through the
confusing parts.

> Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos

charghwI'



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