tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 16 05:21:04 1994
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Word used by Marnen
>From: "Kevin Wilson (DV 1994)" <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 17:22:03 -0400 (EST)
>On Mon, 14 Feb 1994, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>> tlhIjbogh mu'lIj law' law', 'utbogh mu' law' puS. qatlh *wej*
>> mu'tlhegh'e' Dalo', yapDI' wa'? ghorgh jatlh rIntaH 'e' Sov SuvwI'na'.
>>
>> ~mark
>>
>Kevin Wilson replies:
>I assume, probably wrongly, that you were trying to say "A definite
>warrior knows when to finish speaking." However, you used the word ghorgh
>which is a question word. This seems to me to translate as "When does a
>definite warrior know that he is finished speaking?" Unfortunately,
>we do not have a relative/temporal pronoun in tlhIngan Hol.
Actually, what I meant was "A definite warrior knows when he has finished
speaking", but maybe I didn't word it as well as I might have. In any
case, yes, we don't really have relative pronouns or temporal or spatial
ones in Klingon, all we have are the question words. We've generally
adopted the convention to use them, with the proviso that we realize what
it comes down to. If you conside the sentence as "When has he finished
speaking? That, a great warrior knows", you can see that pragmatically it
*does* make sense to permit the question works as relative pronouns.
"Where do they keep the chocolate? I know that": nuqDaq yuch lupol 'e'
vISov. It works, I think, for "I know where they keep the chocolate."
Now, there *is* some ambiguity between "a great warrior knows when he has
finished speaking" and "When does a great warrior know he has finished
speaking?", namely, whether the "ghorgh" applies to the main clause or the
initial subordinate one. Bummer, huh. This kind of ambiguity is perfectly
natural, I think, and it makes plenty of sense that Klingon should have to
deal with it. We have the same problem with relative clauses as objects
and "-vaD" or "-Daq" or "-mo'" words at the front of them: "DujDaq puq
DaqIppu'bogh vIlegh" could mean "I see the child which you hit on the ship"
or "on the ship, I see the child which you hit" (i.e. the seeing or hitting
may have happened on the ship). We cope.
>Qapla'
>Kevin
~mark