tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 06 14:11:23 1994

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Re: *sigh*

According to Silauren Half-Elven:
... 
> > This isn't in TKD, but people on the List usually put {-'e'} on the head 
> > noun the of a relative clause ({-bogh} phrases)...
> 
> *nod*  i can understand that.  only reason i didn't was because i hadn't 
> noticed the trend.  if it helps with clarity, i'll do it.  but i don't 
> know how "correct" it is.

Krankor, our original, yet currently missing, leader, came up
with this idea and then got Okrand to approve it. It was then
described in an article in HolQeD, the scholarly newsletter
produced quarterly by the Klingon Language Institute.
...
> actually, i used {-taH} to indicate that i had been thinking about this 
> particular sentence(s) for a while and still couldn't understand it, and 
> would probably continue to not understand it until someone could explain 
> it to me.  perhaps the addition of {-vam} to <mu'tlheghmey> would've made 
> that implication clearer.

It probably would help. You might also have considered the
suffix {-lI'}, if you had any faith that someone might come
along and provide you an exit from your confusion.

> > {vIQIjlu''a'} means (Is someone explaining me?).  It might be better to 
> > say, {jIHvaD QIjqanglu''a'} (Is someone willing to explain it to me?) or
> 
> i disagree with this statement.  i don't think that's the way objects 
> work in tlhIngan Hol...

Well, I think, for the sake of good communication, it is good
to step back and look at this a little closer. To begin with,
we are dealing with the {-lu'} suffix here, which makes things
different. Still...

> what i understand is (and someone correct me if 
> i'm wrong), if only one object is present, Hol doesn't distinguish 
> whether it is an indirect or direct object.  only context makes this.  i 
> can say <qabuS> (i think that's the word, don't have TKD with me) and it 
> might mean "i concentrate on you" or "i concentrate TO you" (implying 
> esp).  hrm.... i think that's not quite the example i was looking for, 
> but ... hrm.  

Bingo! Context tells you whether or not something makes sense
as an indirect object or a direct object. {qajatlh} means "I
talk TO you" because, as we have chosen to use it, the verb can
be transitive or intransitive, and it doesn't make any sense to
"speak" you, so obviously, I must be speaking TO you. It does
not necessarily need a direct object. 

{qabuS} clearly says, "I concentrate on you," because THIS verb
NEEDS a direct object. It is transitive. It means "concentrate
ON", not merely "concentrate".
 
> <qanIH>
> "I steal you."
> "I steal FROM you."

Here, I could go either way. "Steal" is most commonly used
transitively, though I suppose until we get some kind of
clarification from Okrand, it could also be intransitive.
Meanwhile, {Huch qanIH} would definitely mean, "I steal money
from you." The direct object is fulfilled by the explicit noun,
so the prefix can be free to point to the indirect object. Most
often, when there is an explicit object and a non-matching verb
prefix, the prefix is pointing to the indirect object while the
explicit noun is the direct object.  That seems to be the
pattern I've seen here most often. Hence, your observation:

> there, that's better.  i think.  
> this is how *i* understand objects to work.  i've seen several people on 
> this list say something like <Soj qanIH> for "I steal food from you."  
> (at least, i think <Soj> is food.... you get the idea.)  i don't know if 
> this is good grammar, but it makes sense to me.  so i think that 
> <vIQIjlu''a'> makes sense.  perhaps <vIQIjqanglu''a'> might be better, 
> clearer, but i don't see the first as grammatically incorrect.

The problem is that you want to say, "Will someone explain it
to me?" and you don't have a grammatical element indicating
"it". Since there is no "it" to explain, and since "explain"
tends to need a direct object, the only direct object staring
us in the face is implied by the prefix.

For the second point, even if you were right about objects,
since there is no time context here pointing to the future,
your question (without {-qang}) is:

"Does someone explain [it] to me?"

You see, we strike one of those English elements I like a lot.
We say, "Will someone explain this to me?" when we mean, "Does
someone have the volition (the will, if you will) to explain
this to me?" (Since my human name is "Will", I tend to be
rather sensitive to this aspect of English grammar.) It is the
root of our references to the future, (and I kind of like being
named after all references to the future) and it is well
handled by the suffix {-qang}. You could have avoided {-qang},
if you REALLY wanted to with something like:

tugh mu'tlheghvam muQIj'a' vay'?

Now, you have a time context. You have as close to a future
tense as Klingon offers. Still, the more accurate statement
would be:

mu'tlheghvam muQIjqang'a' vay'?

or, if you really wanted to be understood:

jIHvaD mu'tlheghvam QIjqang'a' vay'?

> again, someone correct me if i'm offbase.

I think the two places your attempt to communicate failed were
that you picked a clearly transitive verb with no explicit
direct object and tried to imply an indirect object with the
prefix, and you expected others to interpret your question to
be about the future with no time context whatsoever. In
hindsight, you can see what you did and understand it, but for
someone who did not accompany you while you were writing it,
and thereby failed to hold the keys to the missing elements of
your sentence, it makes very little sense.

This kind of Klingon literature commonly comes from beginners
because the focus tends to be on getting the English to Klingon
without a lot of attention being paid to what it is like to
forget the process and secret keys that went into creating the
Klingon, then trying to understand what was said. I am less
interested in copping a patronizing attitude than I am in
focusing on what can help you write better Klingon in the
future. In particular, it is important to be able to clearly
read what you have written in Klingon WITHOUT ANY REFERENCE TO
MEMORIES OF HOW YOU GOT TO THE FINISHED TEXT. You have to read
what you have written as if somebody else wrote it, and this is
the first time you have ever seen it, with no context besides
the text itself.

As for why I'd choose to use {vay'} instead of {-lu'}, well, I
see {-lu'} as both making the subject indifinite and also off
from the focal point. That's why it is so natural to translate
it as passive voice. The emphasis is on the definite object.
The subject doesn't really matter. Meanwhile, your question is
really focussed on the person who might do the explaining.
Otherwise, it could easily come out as, "Is this sentence
willing to be explained to me?" 

Notice the example in TKD on page 45:

HeghqangmoHlu'pu' = it made him/her willing to die.

Notice that it did not translate as "it was willing to make
him/her to die." Since the indefinite subject is the thing
doing the causing, it is actually the OBJECT of the causing
that gets the volition ascribed to it. Here is canon for the
combination of {-qang} and {-lu'}.

Heh, heh. I didn't expect to find an example of this, though I
expected this to be true. It all becomes clear to me now...

> > The {neH} I was using was the adverbial, meaning "just", "only", "merely".
> 
> the only thing i would say about this is: i thought {neH} was an 
> attention-drawer.  drawing the importance from the verb it modifies.  
> kinda like saying "well, dad, i *kinda* got a speeding ticket today."  by 
> using {neH} in your sentence, you remove its importance, and thus remove 
> importance of the entire sentence.  (imesho.)

Interesting. I always interpreted it to mean "merely", which is
a little different from your interpretation. Both fulfill
Okrand's "trivializing the action", though the connotations are
different. I'd be interested in what others think about this.

> --naQ'avwI'

charghwI'
-- 

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